Kim Dotcom Extradition Paperwork Filed By U.S. Prosecutors

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Federal prosecutors in the United States have filed papers in New Zealand seeking the extradition of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and three of his colleagues, whom they accuse of making a fortune by helping Internet users share files illegally.

New Zealand justice officials say papers were filed Friday in Auckland's North Shore District Court. The court is not releasing the papers at this time.

U.S. prosecutors accuse the four men of breaching copyright by facilitating millions of illegal downloads through their website, enriching themselves at the expense of movie makers and songwriters. They are accused of a number of offenses including racketeering, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

As well as Dotcom, prosecutors are seeking the extradition from New Zealand of Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, each of whom held senior positions at Megaupload before authorities shut it down in January.

Dotcom and his colleagues remain under house arrest in Auckland. An extradition hearing has been scheduled for August.

Dotcom, who was born in Germany and legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz, has said U.S. authorities cherry-picked emails and other evidence in a way that was "misleading and malicious." He said some Megaupload workers were tasked with taking down any material that might infringe copyright, but U.S. authorities say they only deleted individual links, without removing pirated material.

The U.S. has also charged three men in Europe in the case. One of those men, Andrus Nomm, was arrested by Dutch police in January.

Comments

[jezzgeo]

09:24 AM on 03/06/2012

maybe there shouldn't be so much money in the business of entertaining people as there is today. the movie studios are actually subsidized by our tax dollars when the movies take in less money than it cost to make.

not to mention the US pentagon subsidizing of the propogandistic "Act of Valor" movie.

i'd rather see more money go to teachers and schools, as one example of money better spent.

[jezzgeo]

09:20 AM on 03/06/2012

If this guy made a "fortune" as an intermediary providing free viewings of content, then that should be a sign that the traditional business model of producing/distributing movies can/should be overhauled. There is money those producers and distributors can be making still, but are obstinate or blind to the changing tide brought on by technology.

[George Broadway]

09:17 AM on 03/06/2012

Keep thinking you can out smart these guys RIAA & MPAA... one day you'll push too far and then you'll finally understand how much of the world these guys have access too and can manipulate.

[tonyjim]

11:16 AM on 03/06/2012

I thought the U.S. citizen owns the internet. I guess I was mistaken.

[Ginzu Mawa]

12:31 AM on 03/06/2012

this is a horrible horrible idiotic case to prosecute. if communication infrastructure providers were expected to censor all user activity, it would end any pretense of privacy on the telephone and etc. it would not only legalize snooping but it would require it by law.

[helioszephyr]

01:21 PM on 03/06/2012

It's not so much about the providers "policing", it's about removing the content once it's identified, and proven, to be pirated content (on his servers without rights owner's consent).

Kim/Megaupload charged with knowingly allowing such content on their servers and willingly not removing all such content upon request of the rights owner.

Obviously, providers the likes of YouTube couldn't possibly police/verify all the content, but they comply with removal of such content when notified by the rights owners.

Ultimately, it has to be the artist's/creator's/rights owner's choice whether to allow dissemination/broadcast of their content on any media, not Kim's, or any service provider.

[reader001]

11:10 PM on 03/05/2012

If he's extadited to the U.S... it would have to be in a JUMBO JET..

[usvet1975]

10:47 PM on 03/05/2012

This here fella must eat 2 bags of oreos and a box of twinkies a day, to be draggin this much lard. I`ll bet when he farts, his drawers look like a windsock.

[SkreetGil1]

10:28 PM on 03/05/2012

Why was his site brought down when he wasn't even proven guilty yet.

No, it wasn't right.

[George Broadway]

09:15 AM on 03/06/2012

Well, if you have money and are politically connected, things like due process and "evidence" are irrelevant.

[tma6o]

10:24 PM on 03/05/2012

How much money does the movie makers and songwriters really need. These are the same artist that put their songs on youtube. And we all use Youtube To Mp3.

[Kent E Hoover]

11:44 PM on 03/05/2012

you do the work you should get paid !!!

[Carbon Forteetoo]

09:28 PM on 03/05/2012

We're bringing him here? Can we really afford the impact to our food supply?

[reader001]

11:07 PM on 03/05/2012

I'll make sure to hide my twinkies.

[Pucker]

08:38 PM on 03/05/2012

Nodotneck might be a better name.

[DRaymond]

08:22 PM on 03/05/2012

"Dotcom, who was born in Germany and legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz, has said U.S. authorities cherry-picked emails and other evidence in a way that was "misleading and malicious." He said some Megaupload workers were tasked with taking down any material that might infringe copyright, but U.S. authorities say they only deleted individual links, without removing pirated material." Finally the news coverage is catching onto the thing which distinguishes between Megaupload and all the other cloud storage services. The DMCA requires that services that serve user-provided content must "deny access to the materials" promptly after being notified by the rights holders. But an individual file at Megaupload might have thousands of links to it. The reason is that users quickly caught on that once you downloaded something from Megaupload.com you could immediately 'upload' it (which took very little time because Megaupload would first detect the presence of a duplicate file) and get your own personal URL to it.

[frank day]

07:06 AM on 03/06/2012

Wrong

[mariusvinchi]

06:36 PM on 03/05/2012

This case will do nothing to stem the tide. MegaUpload is but one of MANY file sharing services. Shuttering one merely creates an opening for another. Rather than trying to hold onto an antiquated business distribution model, the RIAA and MPAA should be looking at taking advantage of the new environment. Especially with the explosion of cloud servers, it will be virtually impossible to police, let alone manage the distribution channels....

[RecreationalPilot]

06:00 PM on 03/05/2012

Come to the US to get a FAIR trial?

With the power the RIAA and MPAA hold, that guy will be in Guantanamo by morning.

[Kent E Hoover]

11:45 PM on 03/05/2012

maybe he will eat all the bad guys

[HarryinOR]

05:45 PM on 03/05/2012

Why do spoiled children think that music and movies are free and should always be free? They're not only stealing from the "stars"...but a lot of ancillary jobs are affected as well.

There is a prevailing attitude that this is "ok" but physically stealing a CD or movie is not.

[RecreationalPilot]

05:58 PM on 03/05/2012

That would be true, if the stars saw any of that royalty money.

[tonyjim]

06:05 PM on 03/05/2012

I've heard a lot of talking points, but really haven't seen any studies or research papers on this issue.

[tonyjim]

05:40 PM on 03/05/2012

He's either walking or this is going to the Supreme Court. Pirates have pretty much broke the camel's back and the old archaic way of doing business on the net will be badly shaken. Kinda of a spiraled out of control really, the more the RIAA and MPAA places pressure on those fileshare's the more the pressure mounts for media businesses to change their nickle and diming to death attitude for every little bit of media content.

[ScottNY]

06:23 PM on 03/05/2012

You are absolutely right. Technology has enabled people to share audio and video data like never before, yet the studio's and labels still cling to their old business models and are in complete denial.

The reality is unlike 15 years ago, any one can upload a full length movie from the U.S. to anywhere in the world in under an hour, nothing can change that fact. Profits will never be the same as technology has moved forward. Kodak refused to believe those first grainy low res digital cameras would supplant film, now they're paying for that mistake and lack of foresight.

They demonized iTunes and Netflix, yet those services and others like it are what will keep them alive.