The High Court has ruled the police raid on internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom's Auckland mansion was illegal and the removal from New Zealand of cloned copies of hard drives seized was unlawful.Justice Helen Winkelmann found the warrants used did not adequately describe the offences to which they were related.The cloning of Dotcom's hard drives by the FBI, who took the copied disks back to the US was also ruled as invalid because Dotcom had never given consent.The court ordered an independent lawyer to review everything seized in the raid to determine what is relevant to the investigation and what is not.Relevant material is to be released to US authorities and everything else is be returned to Dotcom "forthwith''.

U.S. prosecutors say there's no need to preserve millions of digital files associated with the file-sharing site Megaupload, whose owners are charged with running a massive online piracy scheme.A federal judge in Alexandria is holding a hearing next week 16/4/12 on what to do with the 1,100 servers that store Megaupload's files.The company that owns the servers  Carpathia Hosting Inc.  says it is spending $9,000 a day to maintain them. It is leery of erasing files that might be needed as evidence.The government says it already copied the necessary evidence. It contends most of the files are illegal copies of copyrighted TV shows and movies. Those with legitimate files, the government says, should have saved backup copies elsewhere.

The first civil lawsuit has been filed against Megaupload in the aftermath of U.S. prosecutors indicting the company's founders on massive copyright infringement charges in January.
The new lawsuit comes from Microhits, which says it owns copyrights on sound recordings featuring Billie Holliday, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone and others, along with Valcom, which says it owns copyrights on films and TV shows featuring Denzel Washington, Bill Murray, Jackie Chan and others. The two companies are suing Megaupload, founder Kim Dotcom, chief technology officer Mathias Ortmann, and Vestor, Ltd. for unspecified millions of dollars. The plaintiffs are being represented by Thomas Dunlap at Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, the same attorney who previously filed pathbreaking litigation against tens of thousands of BitTorrent pirates on behalf of Voltage Pictures and Nu Image.The complaint, filed in Virginia federal court 21/3/12, cites a White Paper on piracy put out by the Obama Administration and also echoes many of the same allegations made by prosecutors in their indictment against Megaupload's founders.The lawsuit rehashes Megaupload's popularity, its operations (including its pay service for premium users) and some of the alleged conversations among Megaupload employees that have now become infamous. For example, it quotes an alleged e-mail by Megaupload Programmer-in-Charge Bram Van der Kolk as saying, "we have a funny businesss...modern day pirates :)".The bulk of the allegations include a list of Megaupload URLs that purportedly contained protected material. The plaintiffs appear to have identified these by searching Google. Here's a paragraph that's representative of the allegations:"During time periods pertinent to this case and through January 19, 2012, inclusive, the Defendants maintained the urls http://www.megaupload.com?d=cud9..82 and http://www.megaupload.com/?d=dull..99. Upon information and belief, such webpages were used to disseminate unauthorized copies of copyrighted works by Christina Aguilera, including those to which Plaintiff Microhits holds copyright ownership."(hollywoodreporter)

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has been granted bail. Dotcom appealed a decision to deny him bail in the North Shore District Court today and his bid was successful.
The judge has decided that the millionaire, who is accused of internet piracy, was not enough of a flight risk. In granting bail this morning, Judge Nevin Dawson said at the North Shore District Court that officials had investigated Dotcom's potential access to funds and "none of significance" had been found. Judge Dawson said it was "highly unlikely" that he had other financial resources available to him that had not already been seized. Prosecution acting for the United States Government had said that because Dotcom was "very wealthy" it was probable he had more bank accounts. However, Judge Dawson said this put Dotcom in the position of having to "prove a negative" and that assertion was not enough to imply his flight risk. Four new bank accounts had been discovered in the Philippines but they were empty, he said. It had also arisen that Finland and Germany, where Dotcom has citizenship, do have treaties with the United States which would allow him to be prosecuted there if he did skip the country. The chief financial officer of Megaupload submitted evidence from Hong Kong saying that Dotcom was "highly disorganised" when it came to financial matters, which accounted dozens of expired credit cards found when police raided his Coatesville mansion. However, Judge Dawson said the most significant change since Dotcom was first arrested was the passing of time. The first bail hearing took place soon after a dramatic arrest at his Coatesville mansion north of Auckland and a large amount of uncertainty surrounded Dotcom's capacity to flee. Since then it was revealed that he did not have the resources to get out of the country and no new bank accounts had been discovered. "The suspicion that Mr Dotcom is very wealthy is not evidence of further assets and cannot be used against him." Judge Dawson granted bail to his Coatesville house with the conditions that he did not have access the internet, no helicopter be allowed to travel to the property, that he would not travel more than 80km from the property and that he give police 24 hours notice of any appointment that required him to leave the property, except for medical emergencies. Dotcom's lawyer Paul Davison QC said the condition that his client had no access to internet was unrealistic. It was an international case where Dotcom needed to be in contact with lawyers in the United States to prepare his case. "It's like saying he shouldn't  have access to a telephone, it's such a fundamental means of communication." Dotcom is due to appear in court again on August 2012 for an extradition hearing.

The Justice Department on Friday 17/2/12 said that more counts of copyright infringement and fraud have been added to its indictment of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and several of his associates. The Supersedig Indictment stacked on more charges and carried details that appeared to have been gleaned from the computer servers seized during the FBI-initiated police raids last month.The Superseding Indictment also cast light on how prosecutors say Megaupload.com was being used. The file-sharing site claimed to have had more than 180 million registered users, but in fact, the Superseding Indictment says that Megaupload’s internal databases show that the site had only 66.6 million as of Jan. 19, 2012. Furthermore, the records reveal that only 5.86 million of these users ever uploaded a file to either Megaupload.com or Megavideo.com, prosecutors said. The Supersedig Indictment offers some details on one particularly egregious user. The person, known as “VV” in the company’s records, uploaded approximately 16,950 files to Megaupload’s sites. These items were viewed more than 34 million times and included what prosecutors said were infringed copies of movies such as “Ocean’s Thirteen,” Pixar’s “Ratatouille, and “Evan Almighty,” which stars Steve Carell. 

Internet piracy-accused Kim Dotcom's mansions has been seized by officials this morning. Guy Sayers, of the Official Assignee, confirmed that staff had seized the house along with items including jet skis, another car and jewellery. Sayers said a new restraining order had been granted over the property on February 1. "We are affecting the original order, still carrying out duties under that… and also dealing with a new restraint over a property in that region." Crown Law, who were dealing directly with the FBI, had issued the order, he said. 

Lawyer for Megaupload, Ira Rothken, told the Associated Press that of the service's 150 million registered users, at least 50 million face losing their data. (TVNZ)

Hi...

I have attached the grand jury indictment for this case. In addition, the attached letter provides notice to counsel representing those charged in the alleged Mega conspiracy that the U.S. government has completed its execution of search warrants at Carpathia Hosting, Inc., and Cogent Communications, Inc., and no longer controls access to the content hosted at these locations. The letter informs counsel that it is possible that the providers will choose to delete this content in the near future and gives them a chance to address this directly with the provider.

Best...

(CBS) - Megaupload users are organizing a complaint against the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations because of a mass wipe of the website's files last week. 
The website TorrentFreak reported, Pirate Parties around the world are compiling a list of people who want to file a joint complaint against the FBI. 
"The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of Megaupload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended," a representative from the Pirate Party announced. Megaupload was taken down last Thursday after the site's founder Kim Dotcom was arrested in New Zealand for piracy and money laundering.
The Pirate Party is accusing the FBI of violating "Articles 197 and 198 of the Spanish Penal Code by misappropriating personal data."
Megaupload is a file-sharing site used for files too large to send via email. While the infrastructure of the site itself is not illegal, the Motion Pictures Association of America alleges the majority of files shared on Megaupload are in violation of copyright laws. The site made money by charging a subscription free for faster downloads and advertisements. (CBSNews)

In most reports following the MegaUpload shutdown, the site is exclusively portrayed as a piracy haven.However, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people used the site to share research data, work documents, personal video collections.As of today, these people are still unsure whether they will ever get their personal belongings back.In a response, Pirate Parties worldwide have started to make a list of all the people affected by the raids, and they are planning to file an official complaint against the US authorities.“The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of Megaupload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended,” they announce.
“For this reason Pirates of Catalonia, in collaboration with Pirate Parties International and other Pirate Parties, have begun investigating these potential breaches of law and will facilitate submission of complaints against the US authorities in as many countries as possible, to ensure a positive and just result.”“This initiative is a starting point for legitimate internet users to help defend themselves from the legal abuses promoted by those wishing to aggressively lock away cultural materials for their own financial gain.”Legal experts and citizen rights groups have taken an interest in the issue as well, TorrentFreak learned. The Pirate Parties are the first to make an inventory of the damage, but not the last.
MegaUpload users who want to join in on the action can do so here. (TorrentFreak)

Convicted Hacker Kim Schmitz Dotcom to Remain in Jail till  22/2/12 the day of the hearing of a US application for extradition. 

4 people have been arrested in the Auckland area as part of an operation led by the USDOJ targeting large scale criminal copyright infringement and money laundering around the world.The arrests, carried out by the OFCANZ  & NZ Police, follow a mutual legal assistance request from US to arrest of individuals for the purpose of extradition. The FBI is investigating a group of people who are alleged to be engaged in and facilitating criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale.The group, known as the “Mega Conspiracy” allegedly operates Megaupload.com, an Internet website that offers file hosting and distribution services. This site has been accused by the USDOJ of reproducing and distributing infringing copies of all types of copyrighted works, including movies, television programmes, music, software and books.The estimated harm to copyright holders is believed to be more than US$500 million.The 4 people were arrested at addresses in Coatsville and Orakei. A total of 10 search warrants were executed at residential and business addresses across Auckland. Those arrested have German, Dutch and Finnish citizenship. Some are resident in New Zealand. They appear in the North Shore District Court .Assets have been seized including luxury cars with an estimated total value of up to NZ$6m. These include a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe valued at over NZ$500,000. Over NZ$10m has also been seized from NZ financial institutions. These have been secured by New Zealand's Official Assignee pending the outcome of legal proceedings.Detective Inspector Grant Wormald of OFCANZ says the arrests were the result of several months coordination with the FBI & USDOJ."The FBI contacted NZ Police in early 2011 with a request to assist with their investigation into the "Mega Conspiracy" NZ Police have worked with the US authorities over recent months to effect successful operation. All the accused have been indicted in US. We will continue to work with the US authorities to assist with the extradition proceedings." said Mr Wormald.4 FBI agents are part of the operation in NZ.

Detective Inspector Grant Wormald of OFCANZ  says the operation was a successful one despite a less than straightforward entry to the Dotcom Mansion:"Police arrived in two marked Police helicopters. Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves Mr Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic locking mechanisms. "While Police neutralised these locks he then further barricaded himself into a safe room within the house which officers had to cut their way into."Once they gained entry into this room they found Mr Dotcom near a firearm which had the appearance of a shortened shotgun. "It was definitely not as simple as knocking at the front door" said Mr Wormald.