Megaupload has no rights? US broke its own rules by going after Internet giant

[Soulless65]

More than four months after federal agents shut-down the file-sharing service Megaupload and ordered a raid on the New Zealand mansion of its founder Kim Dotcom, attorneys are asking a US court to dismiss the case against the website.
Ira Rothken, the California-based attorney of both Megaupload.com and Dotcom, is calling for a US federal court in Virginia to dismiss the criminal case against the website. According to Rothken, the website’s Fifth Amendment rights were violated when the FBI ordered for Megaupload to be taken off the Internet earlier this year. As a result of the agency’s demands, Megaupload’s servers were seized and millions of files uploaded to the website — including those owned by paying subscribers — were made unavailable and are still inaccessible today. Now Rothken says that the prosecutors in the case failed to guarantee due process for his clients and is asking the court to dismiss the charges. Since Megaupload was hosted overseas, argues the site’s attorney, the Department of Justice has acted improperly in its attempts to prosecute.

“Both prongs of the procedural due process test are plainly met here. The Government has seized Megaupload’s property and domain name, ruined its reputation and destroyed its business pursuant to an indictment which is fatally flawed as a jurisdictional matter. Megaupload now finds itself in a state of abeyance, with no end in sight,” writes Rothken in a newly released statement.

“As a result of the Government’s inability to properly serve the summons on Megaupload, this Court lacks jurisdiction over the company. In the absence of effective service of process, criminal proceedings against Megaupload cannot commence, and as the Court has aptly noted, we ‘frankly don’t know that we are ever going to have a trial in this matter’.”

Interesting news isn't

Megaupload has no rights? US broke its own rules by going after Internet giant — RT

 

[hjmick]

Interesting news? No, not really...

 

[uscitizen]

Yep not really Megaupload was violating copyright laws all over the place.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Yep not really Megaupload was violating copyright laws all over the place.

MegaUpload didn't violate ANY copyright laws. The people who kept files on their servers? Well that's a different matter.

MegaUpload sold storage space. That's all. They have a procedure for removing copyrighted materials off their servers and much of it was.

If I'm renting storage space to someone who is using it to keep stolen goods in, I wouldn't be responsible for that crime now would I?

Neither is MegaUpload.

 

[waltky]

Megaupload wins one in NZ court...

Megaupload wins access to data seized in police raid
31 May 2013 > Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has won access to evidence seized during raids on the file storage service.

The decision to grant access was made by the New Zealand high court which said warrants used to grab the material were illegal. The ruling is a victory for Mr Dotcom who said his defence was harmed because police could see evidence he could not. Computers, hard drives and documents were grabbed in January 2012 during raids co-ordinated by US authorities. They accused Megaupload of making massive profits from digital piracy by helping people share movies and music illegally. The raids, led by the FBI, forced Megaupload to close.

Mr Dotcom has denied the charges saying Megaupload was just a storage service that should not be held responsible for what its users did with it. He has fought a long-running legal battle over the case in New Zealand where he lives and has scored several victories. In September 2012 he won an apology from New Zealand's prime minister over the handling of the case. The latest decision requires New Zealand police to comb through the evidence scooped up in the raid and return any data files considered "irrelevant" to the case. Clones of this information created by investigators must be destroyed.

In addition, copies of any information considered "relevant" to the ongoing case must also be handed over to Mr Dotcom's legal team. Lawyers working for Mr Dotcom have long requested access to the information as they prepare for an extradition hearing scheduled for August. US authorities want Mr Dotcom to face charges in the US over alleged copyright theft.

This hearing may be delayed because of questions over whether the evidence being given by the US as justification for extradition was acquired illegally. A year after the Megaupload shut down, Mr Dotcom, formerly Kim Schmidt, started a separate online file-storage service called Mega.

BBC News - Megaupload wins access to data seized in police raid

 

[waltky]

Kim Dotcom dodges U.S. authorities...

U.S. loses bid to revoke Megaupload founder's bail conditions
Mon Dec 1, 2014 - U.S. authorities have lost a motion to have cyber fugitive Kim Dotcom remanded in custody in New Zealand before his extradition hearing to face internet piracy charges in the United States.

An Auckland court on Monday rejected allegations that Dotcom, the founder of the Megaupload online file storage site, was a flight risk and had broken the terms of his bail conditions imposed after flamboyant internet entrepreneur was arrested by U.S. and New Zealand authorities in early 2012.

While Dotcom, a German national and New Zealand resident, was free to return to his sprawling mansion in Auckland, his bail conditions were tightened to prevent him from traveling by helicopter and require him to report to police twice a week. "I have been probably the most compliant and exemplary (bail) candidate," Dotcom told reporters outside the court, while adding that he was surprised that his bail conditions had been tightened.

Kim Dotcom poses near blocks of letters as he talks exclusively to Reuters during his Internet Party pool party at the Dotcom mansion in Coatesville, Auckland

Dotcom, who also goes by the name of Kim Schmitz, is accused of massive copyright infringement related to the Megaupload file sharing site he founded in 2005. He faces an extradition hearing in mid-2015.

Set up in 2005, Megaupload accounted for around 4 percent of total traffic on the internet in its heyday as users stored and shared files containing everything from wedding videos to Hollywood films. Last week, Dotcom said his nearly three-year fight against extradition had left him broke.

U.S. loses bid to revoke Megaupload founder s bail conditions Reuters

 

[ScienceRocks]

I have a right to download all the music and movies I damn well please!

 

[TheOldSchool]

I have a right to download all the music and movies I damn well please!

Typical fucking negro. Taking whatever the hell he wants without any regard for anything.

Go back to Africa.

 

[FA_Q2]

I have a right to download all the music and movies I damn well please!

Typical fucking negro. Taking whatever the hell he wants without any regard for anything.

Go back to Africa.

When did you become a bigoted idiot?

 

[Politico]

Megaupload was a site

Yep not really Megaupload was violating copyright laws all over the place.

MegaUpload didn't violate ANY copyright laws. The people who kept files on their servers? Well that's a different matter.

MegaUpload sold storage space. That's all. They have a procedure for removing copyrighted materials off their servers and much of it was.

If I'm renting storage space to someone who is using it to keep stolen goods in, I wouldn't be responsible for that crime now would I?

Neither is MegaUpload.

Bullshit. Megaupload was a site that was created by a known hacker hiding under multiple aliases for the sole purpose of stealing copyrighted content. Well in all fairness if I was a 300 pound fat man and my name were Kim Schmitz I would probably hide it too. In any case it was always about stealing. And now he has started another site called Mega. Hopefully they will shut that one down too.

 

[occupied]

We should ask ourselves in this age of widespread corporate crime why going after copyright infringement is such an high priority. If we went after financial manipulation and fraud with even a fraction of the zeal we pursue internet piracy I would not view this as corporate powers using the government they bought and paid for to further their own aims.

 

[FA_Q2]

We should ask ourselves in this age of widespread corporate crime why going after copyright infringement is such an high priority. If we went after financial manipulation and fraud with even a fraction of the zeal we pursue internet piracy I would not view this as corporate powers using the government they bought and paid for to further their own aims.

First, piracy his the pockets of political backers (namely Hollywood) so the zeal will always be there.

Second, they don't really focus on piracy. This is mostly true because it is essentially impossible considering the tech today. I can find anything I want weeks before you can even buy it within a minute on a basic search on Google let alone on an actual torrent site. Those that are closed actually aren't (the pirate bay anyone). Torrents are incredibly difficult to take down and the cost of doing so is prohibitive. When they succeed another 12 year old simply produces something better.

Sent from my phone from a bumpy road. Please excuse any errors.

 

[waltky]

Megaupload gonna re-open next year...

Kim Dotcom plans 2017 relaunch of Megaupload
Mon, 11 Jul 2016 - Net entrepreneur Kim Dotcom plans to relaunch the Megaupload web storage system in January 2017.

The original Megaupload file-sharing site proved enormously popular and was thought to have about 50 million users a day at its peak. It was shut down in 2012, following accusations by the US that copyright pirates made heavy use of it. The new service would reinstate the accounts of all former users of the original Megaupload, said Mr Dotcom.

No limits

Plans for the revived Megaupload were revealed in a series of tweets by the German-born entrepreneur, who now lives in New Zealand. He said it would be formally launched on 20 January - five years to the day since his home was raided by police investigating the "massive" amount of pirated material available via Megaupload. Since the raid, Mr Dotcom has waged a lengthy legal battle to fight accusations that he profited from others abusing Megaupload and to recover the assets seized at the time.

He is also fighting attempts to extradite him to the US to face trial over his control of Megaupload. The tweets suggest that the new Megaupload service will involve the Bitcoin virtual currency. However, it is not clear whether it is being used as a payment system or as a way to track what people share via the service. It is also not clear how accounts created on the original service will be reinstated. Mr Dotcom wrote that emails would be sent to former users when the service was ready for them to rejoin it. Mr Dotcom has also said the 2017 version will:

* give people 100GB of storage
* have no data-transfer limits
* let people synchronise all their devices to it

As well as sending messages about the new service, Mr Dotcom issued an appeal to former Megaupload staff to get in touch to help bring it to life. In the years since the raid, Mr Dotcom has dabbled in New Zealand politics and launched a separate file-sharing and storage service called Mega. He resigned from Mega's board of directors in 2013, and since then the company's other investors have taken control and run it separately.

Kim Dotcom plans 2017 relaunch of Megaupload - BBC News

 

[FA_Q2]

^ largely irrelevant. P2P networking has advanced to the point of no return. The genie is not going to go back into the bottle.

If these major conglomerates would put half the effort they do into piracy control into producing a better product then they would not have to worry. Unfortunately they refuse to.