NZ court delays Megaupload trial

A New Zealand court has delayed an extradition hearing for internet tycoon and Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom until March 2013 because of questions about the search and seizure of evidence by the United States where he faces charges of internet piracy and fraud.

William Akel, one of Dotcom's lawyers, said today a hearing scheduled for August has now been postponed to a tentative date of March 25th because two judicial reviews regarding illegal search warrants and evidence disclosure are still underway.

"It was inevitable that the hearing for August was going to be vacated because we have two existing cases in the High Court," Mr Akel said.

In its highest-profile investigation into online piracy, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation alleges that Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, led a group that has netted $175 million since 2005 by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorisation.

Dotcom's lawyers say the company simply offered online storage.

The extradition hearing delay follows the New Zealand high court's ruling in June that search warrants used by police to search the flamboyant Dotcom's house to collect evidence were illegal.

The court also ruled that copying the evidence by the FBI and sending it to the United States was also unlawful.

Continue reading: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0710/breaking1.html

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Permalink Reply by Nathan on August 8, 2012 at 4:47pm

Megaupload Home Raid Queried As 'Over The Top' By Police ... A New Zealand police officer overseeing plans for a raid on the home of Kim Dotcom, the Megaupload.com website founder, questioned whether the use of helicopters was "over the top," according to court testimony. German-born Dotcom, who legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz, was arrested at his residence and spent four weeks in jail before being released to await the extradition hearing ... Dotcom testified today he was beaten by police, although he didn't resist arrest and waited with his hands raised. The Dotcom mansion is valued at NZ$30 million ($25 million), according to an article on the stuff.co.nz website. The property is also known as the "Chrisco mansion," because it was built by the founders of a Christmas hamper company of the same name. Winkelmann had ruled June 28 that police had relied on illegal warrants that were overly broad. An extradition hearing is scheduled for March. – Bloomberg

Dominant Social Theme: Get this guy! He's too big to arrest in the normal way.

Free-Market Analysis: The more we hear about the arrest of Kim Dotcom, the more disturbing the story becomes. Now it turns out he may have been beaten up by the police, even though he didn't resist arrest. And that was before he spent a month in jail.

Let's try to summarize what happened to Kim Dotcom. He built from scratch one of the first and largest file-sharing facilities in the world, accounting for perhaps four percent of the world's Internet traffic at any one time.

As part of Dotcom's ascension within the industry, he apparently helped invent or at least popularize cloud computing. And before he was arrested he was working on an imaginative way for artists to present their music directly over Megaupload's facilities without the need for a record company's sponsorship.

Continue: http://thedailybell.com/4165/Sending-a-Message-Megauploads-Kim-Dotc...