The premise of the Government’s forfeiture request is that Megaupload never earned a single penny that was not criminal under U.S. law — whether, say, from a non-infringing use of its service, or from use that occurred wholly outside the United States and beyond reach of U.S. law, or even from an infringing use within the United States as to which Defendants nonetheless qualify for a statutory safe harbor or lacked requisite criminal intent.A legal motion by the founders of Megaupload • Asking for the dismissal of the case and a return of the millions of dollars seized from them, on the premise that the government did not do their due diligence, assuming that every transaction was criminal in nature (despite “substantial non-infringing uses”), and ignoring the fact that they had no jurisdiction anyway. Among the arguments in the lengthy motion: “Megaupload was a non-U.S. company whose activities mostly occurred overseas and whose users were mostly located overseas.” Will be fascinating to see what happens as a result of this motion.
Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves, Mr Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic-locking mechanisms. … Once they gained entry into [Dotcom’s safe 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.Organised and Financial Crime Agency New Zealand Detective Inspector Grant Wormald • Describing the insane chain of events that led to the arrest of Kim Dotcom (also known as Kim Schmitz), the founder of MegaUpload, on Friday. Among the things removed from the house included two cars, one of which is a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe — which has a retail price of $443,000. No matter how you feel about MegaUpload, Kim Dotcom certainly carries himself like a criminal mastermind, or more correctly, a James Bond villain. source (via • follow)
THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NOTICE THAT LIMEWIRE IS UNDER A COURT-ORDERED INJUNCTION TO STOP DISTRIBUTING AND SUPPORTING ITS FILE-SHARING SOFTWARE. DOWNLOADING OR SHARING COPYRIGHTED CONTENT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS ILLEGAL.A notice on LimeWire’s Web site • Informing the world that the groundbreaking file-sharing service is no more. It lost a permanent injunction, rendering the decade-old site off-limits. You’ll be missed, and not just for all of the spyware you put on our computers. The next step? The RIAA goes for the money grab. Sad. source (via)
Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
