Justice minister signs extradition order for Megaupload founder 12 years after FBI-ordered raid over filesharing site

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/27004668

Kim Dotcom, who is facing criminal charges relating to the defunct file-sharing website Megaupload, is to be extradited to the US, the New Zealand justice minister has said.

German-born Dotcom has New Zealand residency and has been fighting extradition to the US since 2012 following an FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion.

The justice minister, Paul Goldsmith, had signed an extradition order for Dotcom, a spokesperson said on Thursday.

“I considered all of the information carefully, and have decided that Mr Dotcom should be surrendered to the US to face trial,” Goldsmith said in a statement.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Dotcom said: “The obedient US colony in the South Pacific just decided to extradite me for what users uploaded to Megaupload,” in what appears to be a reference to the extradition order.

  • Frozyre@kbin.melroy.org
    873·
    4 months ago

    I remember following this story for like a few years before I trailed off. This is absolutely fucking ridiculous. This was all orchestrated by the MAFIAA in an attempt to again make an example out of someone, because it wasn’t too long after or so, that they managed to penalize and jail some of the original Pirate Bay founders. All of which were long not involved with the Pirate Bay but just because they’ve been associated with such a symbol that has continually and still continues to trounce the efforts of the copyright regime, had to go and make examples of them.

    So here we are now with Dotcom and it feels exactly the same here. Gotta make an example of them because of the years long process of the butt-hurt executives in the copyright regime, crying crocodile tears about superfluous lost “millions” that they still to this day continue to keep vague, just to gain some clout.

    Fuck them.

    • ShortN0te@lemmy.mlEnglish
      442·
      4 months ago

      You have to differentiate between the pirate bay and Kim dotcom. The pirate bay has not sold the access to the media like he has.

      The huge difference is that he profited off of pirated media and pirate bay not. Kims incentive was always profit for himself.

      • ephemeral_gibbon@aussie.zoneEnglish
        13·
        4 months ago

        Yeah I’m kinda with you. If you’re becoming filthy rich off selling access to content others made then you’re fair game. If you’re just doing it for yourself / not profiting it’s a very different ball game though

        • jlow (he/him)@beehaw.orgEnglish
          4·
          4 months ago

          Didn’t he start his “career” with showing a hack on how to get free dial-up internet on German TV for fame and thereby ruining it for everyone because obviously the telco “fixed” the hack after that?

        • ShortN0te@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          babbling off into something that made no coherent sense. It’s so stupid that I’m not putting forth to clarify to you where I differentiated the two in because it’s plainly there. Kindly go fuck yourself.

          Ok.

    • Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      4 months ago

      I’m absolutely with you for the copyright part. I didn’t follow the story but isn’t part of it also because of money laundering? I’m not sure if I’m confusing different cases here, just asking because you may remember more.

      • Frozyre@kbin.melroy.org
        31·
        4 months ago

        Oh right, that. The money laundering.

        Here’s an example of how scummy the department of justice in the united states was when it comes to handling copyright cases and bowing to the luxurious cocks of the media industry. They brandished the money laundering and racketeering excuse to cover up the fact that it was all about the claims of copyright infringement that got them to sick the SWAT teams on Dotcom.

        People on the outside of this story, had no clue what was going on. But every pirate knew exactly what this was all about.

        • Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          4 months ago

          Oh man I’m stupid, it’s in the article. I’ve read OPs summary and somehow checked it off as “read the article” and I was wondering why that wasn’t mentioned.

          Of course the money laundering accusations are a farce, I just thought they’d keep on that for the extradition.

  • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
    41·
    4 months ago

    He may well have broken the law, and he may well be a bit of a dick (I don’t know, but I’m basing this off off comments I’ve seen), but the thing that’s confusing me about this is, why is this America’s business?

    As far as I can tell Dotcom is German-born with New Zealand residence (so presumably still a German citizen?) and the article says:

    The site was formally based in Hong Kong until 2012, when the US seized the domain names and closed down the website. But it survived, relaunching in 2013 as Mega, with a New Zealand domain name.

    The only connection I can see this having to the US is that it cost some US corporations some money, but then that’s surely true for a bunch of other countries as well. I highly doubt it was only US content being pirated. Why does the US get to be in charge of this?

    Also, if this is illegal, why aren’t they arresting the CEO of Google for Google Drive? You pay for that, and there’s a ton of pirated stuff on there. Same with Discord. And those are actually based in the US.

    • Chais@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      6·
      4 months ago

      It’s honestly disgusting.
      USA says “jump” and every country goes “Yes, daddy. How high, daddy?”

  • kratoz29@lemm.eeEnglish
    13·
    4 months ago

    Wow, I thought this story was already over…

    Taringa and Megaupload what a wonderful mix of the past.