In a New Zealand courtroom, the US government has begun making its case as to why Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom should face criminal copyright charges. Dotcom, who was arrested at his Auckland home after a dramatic raid in 2012, has long argued he shouldn't be extradited to the Eastern District of Virginia.
Today, Crown lawyer Christine Gordon, representing the US, read out loud communications between Megaupload executives and users who uploaded copyrighted material to the site. One of those power users, nicknamed "TH" by the FBI, was paid $50,000 in rewards between 2006 and 2011 because of the traffic his files drove to Megaupload, Gordon told the court.TH alone was the subject of 1,200 copyright takedown requests, she said. According to the New Zealand Herald, Gordon told the court that nothing was done to stop TH's infringement, and Megaupload increased the user's server space to 2.5 terabytes to make room for the 30,000 files he hosted. When TH asked for more money, Dotcom responded tersely. In an e-mail read aloud by Gordon, he stated: "You and your friends are at most one per cent of our traffic so please don't overestimate your importance to us... I think we have been fair to you."
In total, the FBI says that $3 million was paid to heavy uploaders between 2006 and 2011. Megaupload stopped its reward system in 2011.
Overall, Gordon opened her case last week by saying the site amounted to "a big fraud, but conducted in a fairly simple manner," according to an Associated Press report. "Behind the scenes, respondents admitted their business broke the law. Sometimes they enjoyed the fact that they were making their money by breaking the law. Sometimes they worried about protection, and pondered what action they should take to, and I'm quoting here Mr. Dotcom's words, 'counter the justice system.'"
The US government has a vast amount of record from the Megaupload servers as well as Skype chats. Gordon told the court about a 2010 conversation Dotcom had over Skype in his native German, in which he told a co-worker: "At some point, a judge will be convinced about how evil we are."
Dotcom's lawyers have yet to offer their full rebuttal to the US arguments, but they've already taken the opportunity to make their point that the hearing isn't a level playing field. First of all, they've objected to the use of pseudonyms with regard to user names.
"In my submission it's unfair that the identities of relevant parties are being withheld," said Dotcom's New Zealand lawyer Ron Mansfield, according to a report from New Zealand's 3 News. They should be identified "so we are at least in the position of knowing who the users are and [can make] some inquiry in relation to these conversations."
Ira Rothken, Dotcom's main US lawyer, has said the authorities are still holding much of Dotcom's $60 million in seized assets, so he can't pay legal bills outside of New Zealand.
The hearing is expected to last three more weeks.
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