The former CEO of the now defunct file sharing site Megaupload used to partake in illegal street racing, stars in his own Euro-dance songs and once owned a auto with a “MAFIA” license plate.
Advertisement
In order to trigger an extradition treaty between the U.S. and New Zealand, the prosecution must prove that a crime was committed in both countries.
Christine Gordon, QC, on behalf of the US Government, said starting with the extradition eligibility hearing before hearing three different applications for a stay of proceedings was the “practical and rational” way forward.
In 2012, Megaupload was shut down and Dotcom and three others were arrested in Auckland, and what has followed has been a tangle of court cases, motions, and various other legal gymnastics that could be close to an endor at least close to moving definitively forward.
The lawyer for Mr Ortmann and Mr van der Kolk, Grant Illingworth, said the USA had refused to let the men spend some of their frozen funds on worldwide expert witnesses. It’s similar to the level of proof that prosecutors would need to launch a criminal trial in the U.S. Government powers blame Dotcom for encouraging Internet robbery on an enormous scale and have accused him of connivance to confer copyright encroachment, racketeering and tax evasion.
The hearing is expected to take several weeks.
Clad in his trademark black, the usually outspoken Dotcom had nothing to say as he arrived at court. In an affidavit for the defense, Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig argues that criminal copyright infringement applies only to people who directly download or steal something and not to secondary parties like website operators.
“The judges on this case can become the champions for billions of Internet users or a handful of United States content billionaires”.
Advertisement
It all stems from Dotcom’s cloud storage operation Megaupload which reportedly earned the 41-year-old tens of millions of dollars. Some argue the case could have broader implications for everyone from moviemakers and musicians to popular websites like YouTube and Google.
