Oh Kim Dotcom, will your exploits never cease? He’s in court battling extradition to the United States, and simultaneously developing a new product that’s probably going to piss off the copyright holders who are coming after him for Megaupload. Genius! More »
As more details surface about the case against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom, the more it seems that legitimate users of the service have been ignored by the legal system. Recently, an entrepreneur named Kyle Goodwin asked courts to return his files to him. As part of his request to have his data returned, Goodwin’s attorney filed a motion to have search warrants issued against Megaupload released.
The reason for requesting to see the search warrants was to determine the grounds authorities used to seize the data. The judge overseeing the case granted the request and the search warrants have now been unsealed for all to see. What Goodwin and his legal team found was very disturbing.
The search warrants reportedly make no mention of legitimate users on the Megaupload site. The warrant reportedly describes Megaupload as nothing more than a place where copyright infringing files are stored. None of the records released by the judge mentioned legitimate users of the site.
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom says that nearly half of all the files stored on the website were never downloaded. That would seem to mean that 50% of the data seized by the government was simply put there for storage by legitimate users. The court documents also accuse Megaupload of not removing files that were deemed infringing, that Megaupload was informed of in 2010. Court documents show that 36 of the 39 infringing files were left on the servers. Dotcom says that the files were left alone because they were never asked to remove them and they didn’t want to interfere with evidence in a criminal case.
[via Torrentfreak]
Megaupload Search Warrant shows no consideration for legitimate user rights is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Kim Dotcom has experienced a few ups and downs in the past couple of weeks. First he announced that he would be launching the successor to Megaupload, simply called “Mega.” Before the new site could launch, however, when Gabon’s government decided that it didn’t want Kim Dotcom to set up shop and suspended the Me.ga domain. That didn’t stop Kim Dotcom from trying again though, this time coming up with a new domain for Mega that’s based in New Zealand.
The domain in question is Mega.co.nz. USA Today reports on Dotcom’s claims that Mega will be better protected by both the government and laws in New Zealand, so if other governments around the world want to take it down, they might have a hard fight ahead of them. At the moment, Mega.co.nz shows a splash page inviting users to leave their email to sign up for news on the site’s launch, so no, it isn’t fully operational yet.
The are also links you can click for information on how to become a hosting partner, how to become a Mega API partner, and how to become a Mega investor. It seems that the launch of Mega is still scheduled for January 20, 2013, which is the one-year anniversary of the raid performed on Kim Dotcom’s mansion. Will the launch of Mega result in a similar raid? We’ll have to wait and see.
After all, it wasn’t that long ago that the US government seized Megaupload and shut it down, so you can bet that Dotcom will get plenty of attention with the launch of this next file sharing website. Here’s hoping that Dotcom doesn’t attract even more negative attention from governments around the world, but at this point, we’re pretty sure he’s already being carefully watched. Check out our timeline below for more on Dotcom!
Kim Dotcom’s Mega returns with New Zealand domain is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Kim Dotcom’s dream of hosting the follow-up to Megaupload at Me.ga fell through last week when Gabon’s government objected. No worry: instead it will appear at the rather less snappy Mega.co.nz. More »
Kim Dotcom is still fighting a legal battle in New Zealand against the United States over alleged copyright infringement and piracy. Dotcom’s website MegaUpload remains closed and the fate of legitimate customer data stored on the company servers remains unclear. Dotcom had said that he would launch a new cloud-storage service in January using the domain Me.ga.
Domains with the .ga suffix are administered by the small West African nation of Gabon. Dotcom apparently believed that by using the .ga domain rather than a .com domain address, the new website could avoid some legal prosecution by US authorities. However, Gabon’s communications minister Blaise Louembe was having none of that.
Louembe has decreed that the www.me.ga domain name will be suspended. He also said that Gabon “cannot serve as a platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights, nor be used by unscrupulous people.” MegaUpload attorney Ira Rothken says that despite the domain setback, the successor site to MegaUpload is still coming.
There is no indication at this time of what alternate domain name the website will use. Legal wrangling between MegaUpload, its founders, and the United States continue. Dotcom and other managers and founders of MegaUpload continue to fight extradition to the United States to stand trial for alleged copyright infringement and piracy.
Rothken said, “The [new] site is not even functional yet. MegaUpload and Kim are innocent and presumed innocent. It sounds like a lack of net neutrality in Gabon…We’re just going to use a different domain.”
[via CNET]
Kim Dotcom’s Me.ga domain killed before new site could launch is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Kim Dotcom has been hyping up Megaupload’s new website Mega for so long that it seemed like a given that the file sharing site would come back bigger and badder. But it doesn’t look likely because Me.ga has already been shut down by Gabon, a small country in Africa that controls the .ga domain. More »
Kim Dotcom is most certainly a name that many have heard of. In case you’re not familiar, Kim Dotcom is the founder/owner of filesharing/storage website, Megaupload, whose servers were raided by the authorities awhile back. His home in New Zealand was also raided by the authorities on behalf of the FBI, a move in which New Zealand’s high court ruled to be illegal. While the extradition hearing for Kim Dotcom is set for March, it seems that in the meantime he will be suing both the Hollywood studios and the US government.
Assuming he’s successful with his lawsuit, what does he plan to do with the damages he receives? While seemingly eccentric in nature, it looks like Dotcom will be using the money provided from the lawsuits to help provide free broadband to residents of New Zealand, and will only be charging business and government users. Dotcom believes that this will be the key for New Zealand’s prosperity and could help attract foreign internet businesses. It’s a rather odd move and we’re not sure how successful he will be with his efforts, but it’s pretty interesting nonetheless.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: File Sharing Supersite Megaupload to Relaunch as Mega , Kim Dotcom Promises A New, Legally-Secure MegaUpload,
Kim Dotcom is trying to build an undersea broadband pipeline that connects Australia, New Zealand, and Los Angeles. Translation: the Megaupload founder is trying to resurrect a project that is seriously never going to happen. More »
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has created another new file-sharing website, only this time he dropped the “upload” from its name. The service is set to officially launch in January, but Dotcom launched the Mega domain name and put up a splash page for the time being. However, the website soon became overloaded and went down shortly after.
The domain has since been restored and is back up and working just fine now, but Dotcom took to Twitter earlier to inform his fans about what happened and that the website is already adding more servers to compensate for the overload. According to his tweets, he seems pretty ecstatic to the response that the website is already getting. He even claimed that FBI agents were purposely reloading the page in order to get it to overload.
Of course, that’s not too surprising considering Dotcom’s history with Megaupload. He’s currently fighting extradition to the United States, and is facing charges of internet piracy and fraud. Also, his house was raided earlier this year, and he even served a brief stint in jail. His extradition hearing is in January.
The new “Mega” website will be hosted outside of the US and it will use an encryption system that is said to rid Mega of any responsibility for hosting copyrighted material. The encryption system encrypts all files before they’re uploaded, and then an encryption key will be provided with each download that lets the user decrypt the file. Because it’s said that Mega will have no way to view the files uploaded to its servers, Dotcom claims it cannot be liable for any copyrighted files.
[via The New Zealand Herald]
Kim Dotcom’s “Mega” site overloaded soon after launch is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Back on October 18, we reported that Megaupload’s founder Kim Dotcom planned to launch a new file sharing service named Mega. Mega will replace the banned Megaupload file-sharing website, which now displays nothing more than a spiffy FBI notice. The new file-sharing network has been announced, and is set to launch in January.
The new website is said to be raid-proof due to hosting outside of the US and an encryption system that absolves Mega of responsibility for hosting copyrighted material. All files uploaded to Mega will be encrypted before they’re uploaded. An encryption key will be provided with each download that lets the downloader decrypt the file.
Because Mega will have no way to view the files uploaded to its system, Dotcom says it cannot be liable for any infringing material. Said Dotcom, “The new Mega will not be threatened by US prosecutors. The new Mega avoids any dealings with US hosters, US domains and US backbone providers and has changed the way it operates to avoid another takedown.”
Dotcom’s house was raided earlier this year, and he served a brief stint in jail. He’s slated for an extradition hearing in January, and faces prosecution in the US. Mega will go live sometime in January; whether it ends up being another Megaupload, destined to be raided and shutdown, is anyone’s guess.
[via Guardian]
Mega announced by Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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