Megaupload Owner Says He’s Not Guilty Of Internet Piracy And Money Laundering

Although all over the world opinions regarding Megaupload situation are divided even more trouble are appearing on the horizon with the latest situation on Sunday. As we all know the president of the popular file sharing service, Kim Dotcom was arrested a couple of days ago. This Sunday he pressed for bail in a New Zealand court. According to Reuters, the defense attorney claimed that their client didn’t do anything wrong and at the same time there is no risk of him flying away on the duration of the trial. Also they added that there is no risk for Kim to restart Megaupload in the time he will spend out of jail.

On the other hand the prosecution argued that because of Dotcom’s wealth, that according to some analyst extend over $41 million in income only last year, represents a risk for him to be able to flee. There is another story that backs up the prosecution. After some searching they managed to discover some unethical background when some time ago he tried to buy some help with a sum of $30 million NZ ($24.2 million US) and with the use of a German rule the record was wiped and cleaned.

In another leak from a different outlet we discover that Megaupload’s US attorney, Robert Bennett, withdraw out of a conflict of interest that went between him and another client of the law firm under the name of Hogan Lovells. It is known that Bennett worked with Megaupload from before the arrest that happened last week. With the number of lawyers increasing each day, another attorney, Ira Rothken, declared that the final ones haven’t been yet established.

In addition to this entire story two more important persons in the company hierarchy were arrested. Estonia’s Andrus Nomm and Germany’s Sven Echternach are believed to be involved with Megaupload but because the warrants were issued by US this wasn’t done until this Sunday. The problem with Echternach is that he was arrested in Germany and there could be some problems to his departure in the US because he is a German citizen. On the other hand in Nomm’s case, it appears that Netherlands laws don’t offer the same restrictions regarding extradition.

Last but not least there is the case of Julius Bencko from Slovakia, a person that is believed to have strong connections with Kim Dotcom and his company. In this case the prosecution is still gathering evidences.

The testimony from Megaupload owners and employees remains the same: the content of its service is legal and that when asked to shut down they obliged without much effort. On the other hand there are the FBI’s official declarations in which it is acknowledged that the staff even rooted through file bundles uploaded by Megaupload’s most known users in search of content under piracy laws and by doing so they knew about the illegal content and didn’t do anything to stop or report it.

For the time being the debate continues and it is interesting to see the final result with more and more important companies and people taking sides. This could be the one case that could change the way people regard piracy the effects it has over the world.



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