New Zealand: Megaupload, the Copyright Lobby, and the Future of Digital Rights

Members of the legal defense team representing internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom have released a new White Paper, stating that the crimes he’s accused of do not exist under US law and that the prosecution was carried out at the behest of special interest groups close to the Democratic Party.

The United States has charged Kim Dotcom with criminal liability for the acts of his Megaupload cloud storage users, a form of secondary copyright infringement, but no criminal statute for secondary copyright infringement exists, the White Paper states.

Millions of Megaupload cloud storage users around the world lost access to their data because of the U.S. government’s take-down of Megaupload.com.

“The vast range of abuses committed in this case raise serious questions as to whether the Department of Justice is carrying out a ‘contract prosecution’ against the defendants,” said Kim Dotcom’s international human rights lawyer Robert Amsterdam.

“The U.S. actions against Kim Dotcom set a frightening precedent for the basic rights of internet users and innovators of new technologies. Frankly, the lies that were told to friendly governments and the illegal spying on Kim Dotcom demonstrate a gunslinger attitude to rule of law.”

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