Key Takeaways
- Megaupload was seized in 2012 accused of internet hosting pirated content material.
- Kim Dotcom faces extradition to the US over a number of prices.
- Dotcom vows to not depart New Zealand, is more likely to enchantment.
Kim Dotcom, the previous proprietor of massively common file sharing web site Megaupload , has been knowledgeable that he’s to be extradited to the US, the place he is because of face prices for a variety of offenses together with copyright infringement, cash laundering, and racketeering. As reported in Stuff, New Zealand Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has signed an extradition order for Kim Dotcom to be deported to the US.
The tech entrepreneur is initially from Germany, however has been dwelling in New Zealand since 2010, and combating extradition since the US Division of Justice seized the Megaupload file sharing web site and filed prices in opposition to him in 2012. The New Zealand authorities has lastly agreed to the extradition, with Goldsmith stating that he has “determined that Mr Dotcom ought to be surrendered to the US to face trial.”
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What was Megaupload and why was it shut down?
The file sharing web site was common for pirated content material
Megaupload was a file sharing web site that ran from 2005 till 2012, when it was seized by the US Division of Justice. Because the title suggests, the positioning allowed anybody to add information which might be made publicly out there for anybody else to obtain. There are many respectable makes use of for a service of this type, however unsurprisingly, the positioning quickly turned one of the crucial common websites for importing and downloading pirated content material.
The case in opposition to Kim Dotcom claims that the estimated hurt to copyright holders was nicely over half a billion {dollars}.
Based on the Megaupload indictment, the positioning was at one level estimated to be the thirteenth most regularly visited web site on the web, with a complete of greater than a billion visits, and over 180 million registered customers. At its peak, it was seeing a mean of 50 million each day visits and made up round 4% of whole web site visitors. All of which inevitably made Kim Dotcom some huge cash by means of subscriptions and promoting. The case in opposition to Kim Dotcom claims that the estimated hurt to copyright holders was nicely over half a billion {dollars}.
The rise of inexpensive streaming companies reminiscent of Spotify and Netflix considerably lowered the recognition of on-line piracy, by making it potential to entry respectable content material simply and at an inexpensive value. Piracy remains to be a factor, and should even develop in reputation once more as firms reminiscent of Netflix and Disney+ proceed to raise prices and clamp down on account sharing, but it surely’s nowhere close to the degrees that it reached throughout the heyday of Megaupload and RapidShare.
It is unlikely to be any time quickly
With the US urgent prices in opposition to Kim Dotcom in 2012, it has already taken 12 years to succeed in the purpose the place an extradition order for him to face trial within the US has lastly been signed. Nonetheless, it is extremely seemingly that issues will proceed to pull out slightly longer.
Kim Dotcom is inside his rights to enchantment the choice to extradite him to the US, and it ought to come as no shock that it looks like that’s precisely what he plans to do.
The tech millionaire has already taken to X (previously Twitter) to make it clear that he has no intention of going quietly. In two posts, Dotcom states that he has a plan, and that he loves New Zealand and is not leaving.
An enchantment is unlikely to be a fast course of, so this story is more likely to proceed to pull out for a short while but. Dotcom has at all times maintained that he shouldn’t be held chargeable for the content material that customers selected to add to Megaupload, however the US Division of Justice claims that not solely had been Megaupload staff conscious that the positioning was getting used to host infringing copies of copyright content material, however that a few of those self same staff used the positioning to add copyrighted works themselves.
It stays to be seen whether or not this try to extradite Kim Dotcom to the US will likely be profitable, however greater than a decade after the plug was pulled on Megaupload, the story nonetheless rumbles on.
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