If you’ve been following his adventures, then you’ll know that Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz in Germany) is currently out on bail, but the United States is looking to have him extradited from New Zealand to face charges related to the distribution of copyright-protected content like movies and music. Dotcom earn over $100 million from Megaupload over the years.

Things aren’t exactly looking all that hot for Kim. Police raided his Auckland mansion earlier this year and the New Zealand high court has ruled that his online operation was illegal. As it stands, Dotcom is facing an extradition hearing in March. In the meantime, he’s apparently working with Pacific Fibre (a New Zealand company) to build up enough money to build a fiber optic web cable across the Pacific to the United States.

This would double the available bandwidth for Kiwis, but it would cost 200 million GBP to build. Kim hopes to supply broadband for free to domestic users, charging businesses and government users. The initial capital, he hopes, would come from the proceeds of his lawsuits against the US government and film studios for their “unlawful and political destruction” of Megaupload.

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Under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act a website is provided safe harbor when infringing content is found, if they didn’t directly know about it and promptly take down the problem content. One major infringer that operated through the site was known as “VV” and over a six year period had uploaded roughly 17,000 files to Megavideo (part of the company). According to the prosecutors, numerous takedown emails where sent yet nothing was done about it.

Crown Law had 45 days to file the papers following raids on the internet millionaire’s rented $30 million Coatesville mansion and other sites across Auckland in January. In total, Dotcom and his associates are are accused of breaching international copyright laws to the value of US$500 million. A date for the extradition hearing has been set down in August.

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Judge Nevin Dawson ruled that Dotcom is eligible for bail as he has no access to funds which would make him a flight risk. Although lawyers acting on behalf of the US government argued that Dotcom has access to wealth that would help him to flee the country, Dawson said that there is no evidence to prove that he has further assets hidden.

As you might know, Dotcom’s known assets including his bank accounts and his Coatesville, Auckland mansion have been seized. However, his pregnant wife and three children were allowed to live in the mansion.

And According to Dawson, Dotcom has “every reason to stay [in New Zealand] to be with his family and to fight to keep his significant assets“.

To make sure that he doesn’t break the bail conditions, Dotcom must reside at his Coatesville mansion and should not travel beyond 50 miles from the residence. Access to helicopters is not allowed. He is also forbidden to access internet as he has “the ability to use it for wrong purposes”, according to Dawson.

Just to refresh your memory, Kim Dotcom is wanted by the US Justice Department for committing $500 million worth of copyright infringement. He and three of his associates might get extradited to the US if the court rules against them in an upcoming hearing.

The post Kim Dotcom Granted Bail, But Won’t Be Tweeting About It appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Proving that they are not at all concerned about the protests against the SOPA and PIPA bills, the members of the British music industry are pushing hard for a block on the site by the British internet service providers (ISPs), including BT and BSkyB.

According to Mr. Justice Arnold, who presided over the case, “In my judgment, the operators of [The Pirate Bay] do authorise its users’ infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting. I conclude that both users and the operators of [The Pirate Bay] infringe the copyrights of the claimants … in the UK”.

The High Court’s ruling on whether the ISPs should prevent their customers from accessing the website is expected to come this June. If the ruling comes in favor of the music industry, 3.7 million users in the UK will be prevented from visiting the website.

Do you think that those numbers are big? According to available info, The Pirate Bay has 30 million users worldwide and earned up to $3 million in advertising revenue just in the month of October last year by creating 4m copies of music and films.

It will be a huge hit to the freedom of the Web in the UK if the site ends up being blocked. And the fact that a legal ruling could bring the curtains down on a site as big as The Pirate Bay should be noted by all those who make a living from a website.

As for all those who are pushing for a ban on The Pirate Bay, you all should stay prepared for what might arrive later on.

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When the FBI and the DOJ seized Megaupload earlier, they certainly might have guessed that a retaliatory attack will arrive at any moment. But unfortunately they weren’t prepared for the strike that came later on from Anonymous which has now left quite a number of sites completely dead.

As you already know, Megaupload is now officially dead and a few of its employees are in custody as well. The hacker group that calls itself Anonymous, which was already not too impressed with the proposed antipiracy bills, boiled over after the attack on the website and has flown into a hacking fury.

Anonymous has launched a counterattack against the websites of the DOJ (DoJ.gov), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Universal Music Group (UMG), FBI and many other websites related to the movie and music industries.

To the horror of many industry related sites, the DDoS attack, which appears to be one of the biggest coordinated attacks ever assembled by the hacking collective, is still ongoing at the moment. Although many sites managed to come alive, many others are still suffering.

Anonymous has released a statement following the attacks. Check it out here.

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So much for all the black outs and all! It appears like they can do whatever they want without passing any new legistlation. The feds have brought the curtain down on Megaupload, one of the most popular “locker services” on the Internet. No, you haven’t missed anything; SOPA and PIPA are yet to be passed.

Calling it one of the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States, the FBI and the Justice Department seized the website and have taken seven Megaupload employees into custody accusing them of running an international enterprise based on Internet piracy.

According to the federal indictment, the website is responsible for a loss of over $500 million in media revenue.

The site’s founder Kim “Dotcom” Schlitz has been arrested in New Zealand. But no hints about what’s going to happen to the website’s CEO rap producer Swizz Beatz who seems to be not too worried about the matter probably because he is still a successful rap producer, an NYU professor, and most importantly Alicia Keys’ husband.

And it’s only been a day after internet’s big protests over the proposed antipiracy bills. The authorities didn’t need any new powers to bring down the giant website. And how big it is, you ask? According to the Department of Justice, the website boasted “more than 150 million registered users, 50 million daily visitors and accounting for four percent of the total traffic on the Internet“.

See below if you want to take a peek at the full indictment.
Mega Indictment

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