Kim Dotcom was returned part of the confiscated property
Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, has been struggling with the American authorities for many years while in New Zealand. And while he manages to avoid extradition. This summer, it even turned out that the surveillance of the American special services for Kim was illegal, and he received back some of the confiscated property.
/ wikimedia / Stannie66 / CC
The prosecution attempted to withdraw an extensive list of Kim Domkom’s assets (formerly named Schmitz) worth about $ 17 million: money in bank accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand, cars, jet skis, a mansion, a $ 10,000 watch, a photograph of Olaf Muller worth $ 100,000 and other values.
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However, earlier this summer, a New Zealand court found that the United States National Security Agency spied on Schmitz for two months longer than it had a right to. This allowed Kim to recover part of the confiscated assets.
Kim Dotcom has been living in New Zealand since 2010. The country's migration service accepted his application as an investor who invested $ 10 million in the economy. Less than two years later, the police raided the Dotcom mansion in Auckland, arresting Kim and three other Megaupload employees. This was preceded by the closure of the file-sharing network and the release in the United States of a 72-page indictment.
It said that for five years, the dotcom company deliberately distributed pirated copies of films and other works protected by copyright. According to investigators, Megaupload received more than $ 175 million in illegal profits from advertising revenue and the sale of premium accounts.
Megaupload was also accused of money laundering by providing rewards to suppliers of pirated content. That is how 5 years ago the sunset of one of the largest services in the history of the Internet took place and litigation began.
File-sharing empire originated in Hong Kong in the 2000s on the wreckage of former Kim companies: Kimpire, Data Protect, Kimvestor, and so on. In 2005, the company name was officially changed to Megaupload. For 4 years, the holding has grown to such an extent that, according to data for 2009, the services included in it owned 1% of Internet traffic.
According to Kim himself, Megaupload was "a popular platform for storing data on the Internet for large enterprises and ordinary users."
Although the company was legally located in Hong Kong, service in China was unavailable. Megaupload had problems in other countries: in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, and India. Both blocking and speed reduction measures were applied to the company, and the reasons were copyright infringements and the distribution of content prohibited in the countries.
The reputation of the service was mixed in corporate circles. So, in 2007, Google ceased advertising relations with the site due to violations of internal rules and US law.
At the peak of popularity, before blocking, 50 million people used the service daily, which made Megaupload the 13th most visited site on the Internet. In 2011, Markmonitor published a report stating that Megaupload and Megavideo, along with Rapidshare, form the top three “main digital pirates” of the time. They generated 21 billion visits per year.
This fact was noticed by the US Department of Justice. The damage caused to the owners of the country, was the reason for combining the efforts of the FBI and the special services of New Zealand to monitor the activities of Kim.
On January 22, 2012, Kim Dotcom appeared before a court in Auckland, where he denied all charges and insisted on release on bail. Exit to freedom he managed only a month later. Since March 5 of the same year, the United States unsuccessfully sought the extradition of Kim.
In the meantime, Kim Dotcom is involved in the political life of New Zealand and is even preparing to restart Megaupload based on the Bitcache blockchain system. According to Kim's promises, the return of the cloud storage was to take place this year - January 20. But this did not happen. Nevertheless, in June, Kim announced that the world will see the beta version of Megaupload 2.0 and Bitcache in August. Recently it became known that an entrepreneur is going to conduct an ICO to restart a resource.
And while, ironically, pirated copies of only Kim Dotkom’s released movie are being distributed on the Internet, the creator of the Megaupload file-sharing network, closed for copyright infringement, is going to move from the north of New Zealand to the south of the country.
PS Three materials on the topic of our blog:
/ wikimedia / Stannie66 / CC
Charges
The prosecution attempted to withdraw an extensive list of Kim Domkom’s assets (formerly named Schmitz) worth about $ 17 million: money in bank accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand, cars, jet skis, a mansion, a $ 10,000 watch, a photograph of Olaf Muller worth $ 100,000 and other values.
')
However, earlier this summer, a New Zealand court found that the United States National Security Agency spied on Schmitz for two months longer than it had a right to. This allowed Kim to recover part of the confiscated assets.
Megaupload Drop
Kim Dotcom has been living in New Zealand since 2010. The country's migration service accepted his application as an investor who invested $ 10 million in the economy. Less than two years later, the police raided the Dotcom mansion in Auckland, arresting Kim and three other Megaupload employees. This was preceded by the closure of the file-sharing network and the release in the United States of a 72-page indictment.
It said that for five years, the dotcom company deliberately distributed pirated copies of films and other works protected by copyright. According to investigators, Megaupload received more than $ 175 million in illegal profits from advertising revenue and the sale of premium accounts.
Megaupload was also accused of money laundering by providing rewards to suppliers of pirated content. That is how 5 years ago the sunset of one of the largest services in the history of the Internet took place and litigation began.
File-sharing empire originated in Hong Kong in the 2000s on the wreckage of former Kim companies: Kimpire, Data Protect, Kimvestor, and so on. In 2005, the company name was officially changed to Megaupload. For 4 years, the holding has grown to such an extent that, according to data for 2009, the services included in it owned 1% of Internet traffic.
According to Kim himself, Megaupload was "a popular platform for storing data on the Internet for large enterprises and ordinary users."
Although the company was legally located in Hong Kong, service in China was unavailable. Megaupload had problems in other countries: in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, and India. Both blocking and speed reduction measures were applied to the company, and the reasons were copyright infringements and the distribution of content prohibited in the countries.
The reputation of the service was mixed in corporate circles. So, in 2007, Google ceased advertising relations with the site due to violations of internal rules and US law.
At the peak of popularity, before blocking, 50 million people used the service daily, which made Megaupload the 13th most visited site on the Internet. In 2011, Markmonitor published a report stating that Megaupload and Megavideo, along with Rapidshare, form the top three “main digital pirates” of the time. They generated 21 billion visits per year.
This fact was noticed by the US Department of Justice. The damage caused to the owners of the country, was the reason for combining the efforts of the FBI and the special services of New Zealand to monitor the activities of Kim.
On January 22, 2012, Kim Dotcom appeared before a court in Auckland, where he denied all charges and insisted on release on bail. Exit to freedom he managed only a month later. Since March 5 of the same year, the United States unsuccessfully sought the extradition of Kim.
Megaupload 2.0
In the meantime, Kim Dotcom is involved in the political life of New Zealand and is even preparing to restart Megaupload based on the Bitcache blockchain system. According to Kim's promises, the return of the cloud storage was to take place this year - January 20. But this did not happen. Nevertheless, in June, Kim announced that the world will see the beta version of Megaupload 2.0 and Bitcache in August. Recently it became known that an entrepreneur is going to conduct an ICO to restart a resource.
And while, ironically, pirated copies of only Kim Dotkom’s released movie are being distributed on the Internet, the creator of the Megaupload file-sharing network, closed for copyright infringement, is going to move from the north of New Zealand to the south of the country.
PS Three materials on the topic of our blog:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/336514/
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