Us Asked to Submit Evidence and Data Against Megaupload Founder

A New Zealand court has asked the United States to release evidence to the defense team that is representing Kim Dotcom, founder of Megaupload, and other employees. The request for the Megaupload data was made by the defense so that they could fight against the extradition request the US has forwarded to the New Zeland court. The US wishes to put Dotcom and several employees of his firm on trial for a slew of charges including copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering.

A previous request was rejected by the US and a New Zealand District Court Judge hearing the case has stated that the court will follow local laws which require that the court be “properly informed”. The judge feared that if the men were handed over without following the law that the hearing would be “one-sided”.

Megaupload, a large file sharing service, came into the cross hairs of the American justice system when they were accused of copyright violations. What followed was an operation that encompassed nine countries and massive amount of data that came with confiscated equipment. Reports indicate that the data found on the computer of Kim Dotcom and his employees are the most damning evidence in the case. The judge in the case wants to see the evidence so that extradition can be approved.

Megaupload was one of the most used file sharing website in the world before it was closed down. The site counted 150 million registered users and was getting 50 million hits a day. The immense traffic on the popular site was putting a lot of money into Kim Dotcom’s pockets and according to the US officials he had made 42 million dollars in the year before his site was shut down. The US proceeded with their action after movie studios claimed that Megaupload site was cashing in on pirated products. The US officials were able make a move because some of the data that was on Megaupload was housed on servers sitting in Virginia.