Megaupload indictment returned with charges added for Kim Dotcom and others

Sarah Halzack
Washington Post
February 18, 2012

The Justice Department on Friday said that more counts of copyright infringement and fraud have been added to its indictment of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and several of his associates.

The superseding indictment also cast light on how prosecutors say Megaupload.com was being used. The file-sharing site claimed to have had more than 180 million registered users, but in fact, the document says that Megaupload’s internal databases show that the site had only 66.6 million as of Jan. 19, 2012. Furthermore, the records reveal that only 5.86 million of these users ever uploaded a file to either Megaupload.com or Megavideo.com, prosecutors said.

The indictment offers some details on one particularly egregious user. The person, known as “VV” in the company’s records, uploaded approximately 16,950 files to Megaupload’s sites. These items were viewed more than 34 million times and included what prosecutors said were infringed copies of movies such as “Ocean’s Thirteen,” Pixar’s “Ratatouille, and “Evan Almighty,” which stars Steve Carell.

Read full report here

This article was posted: Saturday, February 18, 2012 at 11:38 am

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