The Court of Appeals decision against Dotcom et.al. is here. The High Court decision appealed to the Court of Appeals is here.
The U.S. has been pushing their extradtion since 2012 when it raided the Dotcom residence and seized all his assets. The amount of money and prosecutorial resources spent on this case is enormous. I stated my opinion here:
he only thing Kim Dotcom and Megaupload did in the U.S. was lease servers which allowed people to upload material for storage and retrieval. That some people misused Megaupload by storing and sharing copyrighted material is hardly justification for expending the kind of resources used on terrorists or global drug kingpins.
Dotcom never stepped foot in the U.S. to commit a criminal act. The company's offices weren't in the U.S. There was more harm done to the American public --the millions of Megaupload users who lost the material they lawfully uploaded -- than to Hollywood and copyright holders. Hollywood and copyright holders who felt their works had been infringed had an adequate remedy in civil law: file a lawsuit for damages. Megaupload users have no recourse for their destroyed material.
The entire premise behind Dotcom's prosecution is dubious and untested. The Government's case rests on a theory of secondary copyright infringement which exists in civil statutes, not criminal statutes. Dotcom's lawyers explain in this whitepaper.The court in Virginia, or the 4th Circuit, or the U.S. Supreme Court, may well determine secondary infringement cannot give rise to criminal liability and reject DOJ's novel, untested theory. What then? Will Megaupload, Kim Dotcom and lawful users be entitled to damages from the unlawful seizure of the company, its assets and the servers? That will just be another expense.
Kim Dotcom has had twins, gotten divorced, and remarried while this case is pending. His wife Liz has gone to law school and graduated, becoming a member of the bar, and now a member of his impressive defense team.
Good luck, #Kim Dotcom. (You can follow his tweets here.)
