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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the ruh-roh dept.

The Guardian writes:

The high court in New Zealand has ruled Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the United States to face a multitude of charges including money laundering and copyright breaches. US authorities had appealed for Dotcom's extradition to face 13 charges including allegations of conspiracy to commit racketeering, copyright infringement, money laundering and wire fraud.

The German national, who has permanent residency in New Zealand, faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted in the US of piracy, which authorities say cost copyright owners hundreds of millions of dollars. It is nearly five years since Dotcom, a self-described "internet freedom fighter", was arrested in a dramatic police raid on his mansion near Auckland after the FBI shut down Megaupload's servers.

The ruling is confusing because the charges which allow for extradition are different between NZ and the US. From CNN:

Although the four men are accused by U.S. authorities of profiting from copyright infringement through the file-sharing website, the High Court acknowledged Monday that there's no relevant criminal offense under New Zealand's copyright law.

Instead, the court found that Dotcom and his associates were eligible for extradition under conspiracy to defraud and potentially other serious crimes.

Also at pcworld.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:34AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:34AM (#469585) Homepage

    20 or more years is a length of sentence typically reserved for greedy spies [nytimes.com] or Sexual assaultists [foxnews.com] abusing their position of trust within government positions and against vulnerable populations.

    What is going on here is that they are threatening copyright infringers in attempts to force them into plea-bargains to make them examples. These are miscarriages of justice framing intellectual property-crimes as matters of national security. And if matters of robbing Hollywood of revenue are matters of national security, then the country has much bigger problems at hand.

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