AUSTIN, Texas—I’ve been reading about the copyright saga of Kim Dotcom for years now, both on Ars and elsewhere. So I didn’t think I’d have much more to learn when I went to watch the new documentary Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web by Annie Goldson. I was wrong.

More than a story about the Internet, more than a story about US law and copyright, Dotcom’s story has become about New Zealand. The country’s judges hold Dotcom’s destiny in their hands. In an indirect way, New Zealand’s citizens have weighed in as well, as Dotcom took the extraordinary measure of using politics and publicity to fight the US government.

His legal drama has dragged out for more than five years now. But the huge delay isn’t a coincidence. Through the Dotcom case, New Zealanders are faced with a deep question: what kind of relationship do they want with the United States? Goldson’s documentary, funded in part by the New Zealand Film Commission, makes a great contribution by putting the focus on the democratic and political contest rather than legal nitpicking.