Reuters via The Guardian , The Guardian; Kim Dotcom to be extradited from New Zealand to US
"As well as copyright infringement, Dotcom faces more serious charges, including money laundering and racketeering. He has long argued that he should not be held liable for copyright infringement carried out using his site, a filesharing service that allowed users to upload content and share the link with others to download."
"A panel of the Richmond-based 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled, 2-1, that Dotcom—the swashbuckling founder of the once-highly-popular file-sharing website Megaupload—could not recover his assets because he remains a fugitive from criminal charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit money laundering in a scheme that allegedly caused $500 million in damages to the motion picture industry. "The refusal to face criminal charges that would determine whether or not the claimants came by the property at issue illegally supports a presumption that the property was, indeed, so obtained," Judge Roger Gregory wrote in an opinion joined by Judge Allyson Duncan."
"A New Zealand court has ruled that Kim Dotcom, the Megaupload founder, can be extradited to the United States to face charges of copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering. The decision, which can be appealed, comes almost four years after New Zealand police first raided Dotcom’s mansion west of Auckland at the behest of the FBI. US authorities shut down the entrepreneur’s file-sharing website, which had been used to illegally download songs and movies... US authorities say Dotcom and three co-accused Megaupload executives cost film studios and record companies more than US$500m and generated more than US$175m in profits by encouraging their paying users to store and share copyrighted material, such as movies and TV shows. The New Zealand prosecution, which argued the case for the US government, said Dotcom and his executives had encouraged and paid users to upload the pirated films and music to generate profit."
"An Estonian man who worked as a computer programmer for the now-defunct file-sharing website Megaupload has pleaded guilty in what prosecutors say was a massive copyright-piracy scheme run through the site. Andrus Nomm, 36, pleaded guilty Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Prosecutors say Megaupload was used to illegally download millions of songs and movies in one of the biggest copyright cases in history. Nomm was one of seven men indicted in the case three years ago and the first to be brought to the U.S. to face charges."
"It was not an ordinary political rally, but it has been anything but an ordinary election. The hundreds of people who packed Auckland Town Hall on a recent evening were regaled by speeches by Glenn Greenwald, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder; and Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, the last two appearing by Internet video link. Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Snowden said the New Zealand government had carried out, or at least participated in, mass domestic surveillance. But at the center of the show was the event’s organizer, Kim Dotcom, an Internet entrepreneur accused of mass copyright theft whose fledgling Internet Party stands a chance at winning seats in Parliament in the national elections on Saturday. “We are going to work really, really hard to stop this country from participating in mass surveillance,” Mr. Dotcom told the crowd. “And we’ll close one of the Five Eyes,” he added, referring to the intelligence alliance that consists of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. The crowd erupted in cheers."
