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Court rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the US
Kim Dotcom, who has been in the news so often that it's hard to believe his company MegaUpload was shut down way back in 2012, is running out of lives. A New Zealand appeals court has ruled that he can be extradited to the US to face criminal copyright infringement charges. Dotcom's lawyer Ira Rothken tweeted that he's "disappointed" with the decision, and plans to make a final appeal to the New Zealand Supreme Court.
Kim Dotcom sues the New Zealand government for $6.8 billion
Kim Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing site MegaUpload, is suing the New Zealand government for $6.8 billion dollars. According to the legal documents provided by the BBC, the claim covers the destruction of his business, loss of reputation, lost business opportunities, legal costs and lost opportunities on the home he was renting.
Supreme Court denies Kim Dotcom petition to keep $40 million in assets
Kim Dotcom, the founder of illegal file-sharing site Megaupload, was arrested in 2012 by New Zealand authorities on behalf of the US. He still has not been extradited to the US, however. In April of this year, the file-sharing maven asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a 2014 ruling that let US authorities keep $75 million in assets seized during the original raid on his house. The petition was denied on October 2nd, which allows the seizure order to remain intact.
Kim Dotcom asks the Supreme Court to hear him out
Kim Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing website Megaupload, is taking his case to the United States Supreme Court. He's petitioned the highest court in the land to overturn a ruling allowing US authorities to keep $75 million in assets seized during a 2012 raid on Dotcom's house in Auckland, New Zealand.
Kim Dotcom will be allowed to stream his extradition appeal
The extradition case for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can be streamed on YouTube, a New Zealand court has ruled. The German internet entrepreneur -- now living in Auckland, the nation's largest city -- and three of his former colleagues began a six-week hearing earlier this week to appeal a December court decision that allows them to be extradited to the US to face conspiracy, racketeering and money-laundering charges.
Kim Dotcom hopes to livestream his extradition appeal
Megaupload creator Kim Dotcom is in the fight of his life as he appeals his possible extradition to the US, and he wants everyone to know it. He's requesting that the Auckland, New Zealand court hearing his case should let him livestream the hearing on YouTube. Dotcom and his lawyer Ira Rothken argue that this is the definition of a "public interest" case. Megaupload's abrupt shutdown over allegedly facilitating piracy, and the resulting criminal action, supposedly had a far-reaching effect on the internet.
Kim Dotcom could face extradition to the US
Kim Dotcom, essentially the Motion Picture Association of America and Digital Millennium Copyright Act's de facto prime target, and his colleagues actually can be extradited to the United States to face copyright charges according to a judicial ruling. However, don't expect the man behind Megaupload to appear stateside anytime soon.As The New Zealand Herald, Dotcom's local news publication, tells it, the internet mogul has 15 days to appeal or apply for a writ of habeas corpus (produce the body) and it looks like his legal defense team is already taking care of that. In addition to copyright infringement, he faces charges for racketeering and money laundering as well. The BBC reports that he owes domestic authorities somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million.
Kim Dotcom promises to launch an open-source competitor to Mega (updated)
Third time's a charm. Kim Dotcom -- creator of Megaupload and Mega file-sharing sites, New Zealand politician, US fugitive -- plans to launch a third cloud-storage company when his existing non-compete clause runs out at the end of the year. Dotcom briefly outlined his plans for a new site in a Slashdot user interview, saying, "I will create a Mega competitor that is completely open source and non-profit, similar to the Wikipedia model. I want to give everyone free, unlimited and encrypted cloud storage with the help of donations from the community to keep things going."
FBI slip-up leaves Megaupload, other seized sites hosting nasty ads
The FBI might want to continue brushing up on its internet skills. The agency's online division forgot to renew the web domain it uses to host seized websites, leading to a "black hat SEO" marketer taking over sites like Megaupload and temporarily filling them with malware- and scam-laden ads. Law enforcement officials eventually got their former domain suspended due to an "ongoing criminal investigation" into the malware, but the address' ultimate fate remains up in the air. Suffice it to say that the mistake is ironic -- the FBI inadvertently contributed to the very sort of digital crime it's trying to stop.
Megaupload piracy case lands its first prison sentence
The US government leveled piracy charges against Megaupload's operators three years ago, but it looks like those efforts are only now leading to real convictions. Programmer Andrus Nõmm has ended his extradition fight and pleaded guilty to charges that he helped commit copyright infringement by knowingly developing for a site that thrived on sharing bootleg files. He'll spend a year in prison, which takes into account both his role at Megaupload and his willingness to confess.
Canada's digital spies are watching what you download
It's not just American and British spies who want to know what you're downloading. Documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that Canada's digital surveillance agency, the Communication Security Establishment, has been monitoring the file transfer activity of at least 102 sites, including Megaupload (while it was running), Rapidshare and Sendspace. The effort, codenamed Levitation, is meant to spot foreign terrorists using these file services to conduct their operations. It may only net a user's IP address in many cases, but the CSE can run its findings through databases from allied intelligence agencies (such as GCHQ and the NSA) to get names, email addresses and other personal details.
Kim Dotcom says he's broke
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom might have been able to reclaim his New Zealand finances earlier this year, but his ensuing legal fight against internet piracy charges has apparently evaporated that. The entrepreneur told the BBC that he' has gone through $10 million in legal costs. His legal defense team stepped down two weeks ago causing Dotcom to initially claim he might have to represent himself at his bail hearing (which began earlier today). While Dotcom was able to reclaim some assets, dozens of bank accounts remain frozen. Dotcom's follow-up online storage service, Mega was valued at $164 million in March, although as the BBC reports, the founder doesn't hold a stake in the company. Financial troubles have also been compounded by his political party, the Internet Party, which failed to claim a single seat in New Zealand's general election two months ago.
Kim Dotcom parts ways with the music service that he helped create
If you're famous for being the most hated man in music, it might be hard to convince musicians that you're on their side. That's the problem facing Baboom, the music streaming service started by Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom. Now, however, the company has parted ways with its infamous creator in the hope of improving relationships with the musicians it needs to recruit. On the surface, the parting is amicable and, after selling his 45 percent ownership stake, Dotcom confessed that his presence was holding the site back, much in the same way that the Internet Party was tainted by association. There's no word on if his self-penned album will remain on Baboom when it fully launches in 2015, so best download it while you've got the chance.
Kim Dotcom offers whistleblowers $5 million to help Megaupload's case
The basic facts of how Megaupload was shut down in 2012 are public knowledge. But the founder of the file-sharing service, Kim Dotcom, believes there's a subtext to what really happened -- and he's looking for your help to prove it. In essence, he claims to be the victim of a "corrupt" plot between two back-scratching parties: the US authorities, which supposedly wanted to secure the re-election of President Barack Obama, and the movie moguls of Hollywood, who allegedly offered influence over votes in return for having Megaupload terminated for copyright abuse. The only problem? Dotcom will actually have to prove all of this to a New Zealand court, otherwise he'll face extradition to the US, not to mention a string of further civil lawsuits. And so far, it isn't going well.
Kim Dotcom will celebrate getting his fortune back on the race track
Kim Dotcom's getting his fortune back, and to celebrate, he's throwing a party. The Megaupload founder tweeted this morning that Auckland's High Court will return the cash, vehicles and property that were seized on behalf of the US back in 2012. On hearing the news, Dotcom tweeted that when he gets his stuff back, which should be within the fortnight, he will rent out New Zealand's Taupo race track and invite members of his political party, the Internet Party, over for a track day. We're not sure if it's open to current members only, but we doubt there's any harm in signing up, hell, you might just get a ride in his prized Rolls Royce for your trouble.
Big music labels file their own lawsuit against Megaupload over piracy
The seemingly inevitable has happened: following in the footsteps of the MPAA, the big music labels behind the RIAA have filed a copyright lawsuit against Megaupload. The companies assert that Kim Dotcom and crew both fostered and "handsomely profited from" illegally copied tunes shared through the service before the federal government shut it down. The RIAA is quick to add that Megaupload's death resulted in a drop in piracy across the board -- that's surely evidence that it was up to no good, right?
Major movie studios finally file a lawsuit against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom
We're not sure what took so long, but the MPAA just announced that major movie studios (Fox, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Columbia and Warner) have filed a civil lawsuit against former filesharing site Megaupload and the people who ran it. This comes over two years after federal investigators shut down the website, seized its files and filed criminal charges against founder Kim Dotcom aka Kim Schmitz. MPAA lawyer Steven Fabrizio (named its global general counsel late last year, he's won cases against Hotfile and IsoHunt) claims that at the time of its shutdown, Megaupload was "by all estimates the largest and most active infringing website targeting creative content in the world." Specifically targeting the site's Uploader Rewards program, the claim is that its business model was "designed to encourage theft." According to Dotcom, the rewards program was terminated six months prior to the site's shutdown, and Megaupload continued to grow without it.
Kim Dotcom gets into politics with launch of an 'Internet Party' in New Zealand
While he's still considered to be a dangerous internet pirate by the world's law enforcement agencies, Kim Dotcom is using his notoriety to branch off into politics. With the emphatic tagline "this is going to be awesome," the giant German today launched the Internet Party, promising faster and cheaper internet, new high-tech jobs and increased privacy for all New Zealanders. Dotcom hopes to become a prominent political figure ahead of the country's September general election, all the while US authorities fight to extradite him to face piracy charges linked to the now defunct file-sharing service Megaupload. Following the flashy raid on Dotcom's New Zealand mansion in 2012, the internet mogul focused on launching a new cloud storage service, Mega, which is set to go public later this year. By recruiting through the party's website and mobile apps (with a $0.99 membership fee for three years), Dotcom hopes to sign up 500 members in order to register with New Zealand's electoral commission and then gain a 5 percent share in the opinion polls in September's elections. If it doesn't reach the target, Dotcom has said previously that he may close the party and move on.
Kim Dotcom previews new music streaming site with his own europop album
Kim Dotcom has done it again. Two years after he rented a bunch of musicians (including Will.i.am) to promote his doomed Megaupload service, he's turned to a group of presumably more affordable artists to support his next project, Baboom. The music streaming site launched in preview mode today, with a design that looks like a cross between Rdio and the new MySpace, and with just a single album in its library: a sort of europop medley made by Dotcom himself with contributions from Printz Board (one of Will.i.am's buddies), Mona Dotcom (Kim's wife) and some others we've never heard of. Although this teaser album is free, Baboom will ultimately let you pay to download music in addition to streaming it, and the site appears to offer a degree of support for high-definition audio too (including FLAC and MP3 320Kbps). The big selling point, however, will be a reward scheme that gives you free music in exchange for installing an advertising plugin into your browser -- but that's likely still a few months off. In the meantime, Dotcom's talent for self-publicity (if not singing) seems to be working: Baboom is reporting 80,000 plays in its first hour online. [Image credit: Thierry Ehrmann, Flickr]
Editorial: Kim Dotcom, noisy rogue with a commonplace startup idea
Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing has traditionally operated on a narrow ledge between perceptions of legality and illegality. The legitimacy of underlying file-transfer technology is never in dispute, though media companies might hate the unleashing of content that it represents. The narrow ledge is balanced between two activities: directly infringing copyright (what some users do), and indirectly facilitating infringement by providing a platform that makes it easy (what P2P platforms do). One purpose of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is to protect the technology of file sharing, and companies that use it, by inventing a theoretical "safe harbor" that shelters all sorts of user-powered platforms from the consequences of illegal actions by the users. If media companies hate digitization generally, they particularly loathe Kim Dotcom and his entrepreneurial file-transfer platforms. Their revulsion was fulfilled exactly a year ago when the US Justice Department shut down Megaupload.com, a network of shareable cloud lockers focused on music, movies and images. Like a recurring nightmare, and in apparent commemoration of the anniversary, Megaupload's bumptious founder is launching Mega, an evolved version of the same idea. Mega further narrows the P2P ledge and fleshes out its founder's complex ambition.
