Megaupload neergehaald door de FBI #4 Kim Jing Ping Ping

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LG Frankfurt a.M: Rechtshilfeersuchen wegen Megaupload-Strafverfahren in Deutschland unbegründet

Das LG Frankfurt a.M. (Beschl. v. 14.05.2012 - Az.: 5/28 Qs 15/12) hat entschieden, dass ein Rechtshilfeersuchen aus den USA wegen des Filesharing-Dienstes Megaupload in Deutschland unbegründet ist.

Im Rahmen der strafrechtlichen Ermittlungsverfahren gegen den Filesharing-Dienst Megaupload sollten auch in Deutschland bestimmte Vermögenswerte abgeschöpft werden. Den Antrag hatte die amerikanische FBI-Behörde im Rahmen eines Rechtshilfeersuchens gestellt.

Die Frankfurter Richter lehnten nun dieses Gesuch ab, da sie es für unzureichend begründet bewerteten. Es sei nicht hinreichend dargestellt, dass ein Webhosting-Dienst für den rechtswidrigen Upload urheberrechtlich geschützter Dateien strafrechtlich verantwortlich sei.

Nach dem Telemediengesetz sei ein Hosting-Dienst für fremde Dateien grundsätzlich nicht verantwortlich, es sei denn, er habe von Rechtsverstößen aktive Kenntnis, so die Robenträger. Der Begriff der Kenntnis sei auf positive Kenntnis beschränkt. Nicht ausreichend sei es hingegen, dass der Diensteanbieter es nur für möglich oder überwiegend wahrscheinlich halte, dass eine bestimmte Information auf seinem Server gespeichert sei.

Es bestünde auch keine gesetzliche Verpflichtung, die übermittelten oder gespeicherten Informationen zu überwachen oder nach Umständen zu erforschen, die auf eine rechtswidrige Tätigkeit hinwiesen.

Da das Rechtshilfeersuchen hier keine weiteren Umstände nenne, die eine Strafbarkeit begründen könnten, sei die beantragte Vermögensabschöpfung unbegründet.

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Kim DotCom: New Zealand will be home to new MegaUpload site

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New Zealand appears to be embracing Kim DotCom and the service he's creating to replace MegaUpload.

DotCom announced on Twitter that his new cloud-storage service will use a New Zealand-based domain: Mega.co.nz. DotCom attempted to use a domain name from the West African country of Gabon, but that country's administration last week ordered that the domain, Me.ga, be suspended.

DotCom didn't waste time in finding a new domain name.

"New Zealand will be the home of our new website: Mega.co.nz," DotCom wrote, adding that the site will operate within the law. He previously said that the new service will launch in January.

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Op dinsdag 13 november 2012 03:23 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Op dinsdag 13 november 2012 11:39 schreef wolfrolf het volgende:

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heb je een vertaling

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Dotcom: We've hit the jackpot

A fresh legal bid to throw out the case against Kim Dotcom in the United States is being made after claims of an FBI double-cross.

Evidence has emerged showing the Department of Homeland Security served a search warrant on Mr Dotcom's file-sharing company Megaupload in 2010 which he claims forced it to preserve pirated movies found in an unrelated piracy investigation.

The 39 files were identified during an investigation into the NinjaVideo website, which had used Megaupload's cloud storage to store pirated movies.

When the FBI applied to seize the Megaupload site in 2012, it said the company had failed to delete pirated content and cited the earlier search warrant against the continued existence of 36 of the same 39 files.

The details emerged after the US District Court in East Virginia allowed partial access to the FBI application which led to the shutdown of the Mega family of websites.

Other information from the case to emerge this week includes a collection of photographs from the day of the raid at Mr Dotcom's Coatesville property on January 20 this year.

The High Court released the material after applications from the Herald.

Mr Dotcom said Megaupload co-operated with the US Government investigation into copyright pirates NinjaVideo and was legally unable to delete the 39 movies identified in the search warrant.

Mr Dotcom said: "We were informed by (the US Government) we were not to interfere with the investigation. We completely co-operated.

"Then the FBI used the fact the files were still in the account of the ... user to get the warrant to seize our own domains. This is outrageous."

He said the revelation was the first insight into the FBI's case against Megaupload and it showed bad faith on the part of the US Government. "Immediately we hit the jackpot - the first little piece of paper is this super-jackpot."

New Zealand's district court has ordered the FBI to provide documents relating to its investigation through an order for discovery. It was currently being appealed.

"I understand why the US is working so hard to appeal the discovery decision."

Mr Dotcom said the warrant obliged Megaupload to keep the files. It was among a string of legal requests from law enforcement agencies around the world.

"We have always co-operated. We have responded to takedown requests, we have been a good corporate citizen."

The FBI application to seize the sites said the "Mega Conspiracy" members were told by "criminal search warrant" in June 2010 "that 39 infringing copies of copyrighted motion pictures were present on their leased servers". The application was approved to allow the seizure of the domain names.

However, the application to seize the domain names, made on January 13, 2012, did not state the earlier search warrant was not issued against Megaupload.

Instead, the Department of Homeland Security application sought the help of Megaupload to track down files of interest in its investigation of NinjaVideo. The warrant application was by Special Agent William Engel and stated that the data storage company Carpathia "will work with its customer Megaupload to access content to provide in response to the search warrant".

The investigation was a success and saw its central figure Hana Amal "Queen Phara" Beshara sentenced to prison for 22 months and ordered to pay $256,000 of her illegally gained money to the Motion Picture Association of America - the same Hollywood lobby group blamed for pitting the FBI against Megaupload.

The access was granted after a bid by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of a Megaupload customer whose business files were lost when the cloud storage site was shut down.

Mr Dotcom's US-based lawyer Ira Rothken said he would ask the US court to return the Megaupload websites.

He said the discovery of the FBI's evidence of wrongdoing was part of a "trail of misconduct" stretching from the US to New Zealand which would ultimately lead to asking for the FBI charges to be dismissed.

"What we have uncovered, in our view, is misleading conduct. It looks like the Government wants the confidentiality because they would be concerned their conduct would be scrutinised."

The 39 files were not only used by NinjaVideo, according to the FBI affidavit. The Megaupload system identified files which were already on the system and kept only one copy of each. Unique weblinks were produced for each user providing multiple paths to the same file. The FBI indictment cited an email by Mr Dotcom's co-accused Mathias Ortman in which he said more than 2000 users had uploaded the 39 files.

A month after Homeland Security sought MegaUpload's help, NinjaVideo and a range of other sites were shutdown without warning. Coverage of the action led to Mr Dotcom emailing staff about the domain seizures, saying the manner of the US action posed "a serious threat to our business". He asked: "Should we move our domain to another country (Canada or even HK?)." The company, which has maintained it operated inside the law, stayed in the US.

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Researchers find Megaupload shutdown hurt box office revenues, despite gains for blockbusters

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We’ve heard this one before, over and over again: pirates are the biggest spenders. It therefore shouldn’t surprise too many people to learn that shutting down Megaupload earlier this year had a negative effect on box office revenues.

The latest finding comes from a paper titled “Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload” (via TorrentFreak) from last month, conducted by from Munich School of Management (LMU) and the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). Here’s the abstract:

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Dotcom documents accuse FBI of double-cross

Kim Dotcom is challenging the warrants used to seize his fortune in new court documents which accuse the FBI of doubled-crossing his Megaupload company.

The new court filings say the courts need to examine closely the evidence submitted by the FBI when it sought seizure warrants as part of its investigation into Megaupload.

It pointed to a "pattern of governmental misconduct plaguing proceedings" in New Zealand and said the FBI secured judicial backing to go after Megaupload by misrepresenting help the file-sharing company had given during the investigation into an internet pirate.

"This is huge," Mr Dotcom tweeted, announcing the filing. It was proof of the "US government acting in bad faith" and the Department of Justice "misleading". Mr Dotcom and three colleagues are facing extradition to the US on charges of criminal copyright violation, which they deny.

The claim of dishonesty hinges on testimony given by the FBI of Megaupload knowingly acting as a haven for illegally copied movies. The testimony was given a year ago in hearings which saw warrants issued for Dotcom and his business associates.

Details released from US courts in November showed the FBI relied on the existence of 36 illegally copied movies as evidence of willful law-breaking. The FBI told the US courts Megaupload had been told of the illegal files in 2010 and the continued existence was evidence to flagrant criminality.

However, Dotcom's lawyers said the files were kept at the request of the US government which asked it do nothing to impact on its criminal investigation. They claimed FBI testimony to secure arrest warrants managed to "exclude critical facts" which would have shown the company's efforts to assist. Instead, they gave a "selective distorted account" and "deliberately misled the court".

The filing says Megaupload was painted by the FBI as a "brazen scofflaw" and the files were the only linking thread which tied together those described by the FBI as the "Mega Conspiracy".

It also pointed to other court cases which showed warrants being declared invalid if the applicant - in this case the FBI - was shown to be dishonest or reckless.

The help sought in 2010 related to a Homeland Security investigation into NinjaVideo, a file-sharing site which used Megaupload's system to store files. An agent on the case contacted Megaupload's data storage company Carpathia to ask for help securing the files. Megaupload was told not to alter or change the files - a detail not later mentioned by the FBI.

Mr Dotcom's lawyers pointed to an email between Carpathia and Megaupload from 2010 as capturing the reality. The email, from Carpathia executive Phil Hedlund, detailed the search warrant issued to capture the NinjaVideo material.

Mr Hedlund said the warrant was restricted to just Caropathia and Megaupload but would be otherwise kept secret. He said it was possible to do so "because we relayed to the Government Mega's willingness to work with the Government for these types on requests". He added: "We have no reason to believe the Megaupload is the target of the investigation."

The Weekend Herald revealed the details around the so-called double-cross in November when the first US court files were unsealed. Mr Dotcom, waiting on the US to comply with NZ court orders for discovery, said: "I understand why the US is working so hard to appeal the discovery decision."

He said Megaupload worked hard to comply with requests to remove unlawful material.
"We have always co-operated. We have responded to takedown requests, we have been a good corporate citizen."

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Antigua Government Set to Launch “Pirate” Website To Punish United States

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The Government of Antigua is planning to launch a website selling movies, music and software, without paying U.S. copyright holders. The Caribbean island is taking the unprecedented step because the United States refuses to lift a trade “blockade” preventing the island from offering Internet gambling services, despite several WTO decisions in Antigua’s favor. The country now hopes to recoup some of the lost income through a WTO approved “warez” site.

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Op donderdag 24 januari 2013 17:40 schreef Iwanius het volgende:
Kan iemand mij uitleggen waar die vent eigenlijk nog zijn geld mee verdiend want ik meen mij vaag iets te herinneren dat al zijn bezittingen en vermogen waren geconfisceerd door de overheid tijdens zijn arrestatie. Of zijn al zijn bankrekeningen weer vrij gegeven met het daarop gestationeerde saldo?

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Op donderdag 24 januari 2013 17:40 schreef Iwanius het volgende:
Kan iemand mij uitleggen waar die vent eigenlijk nog zijn geld mee verdiend want ik meen mij vaag iets te herinneren dat al zijn bezittingen en vermogen waren geconfisceerd door de overheid tijdens zijn arrestatie. Of zijn al zijn bankrekeningen weer vrij gegeven met het daarop gestationeerde saldo?

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Op zaterdag 26 januari 2013 09:22 schreef kipknots het volgende:

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Ze zijn toch weer vrije gegeven?

Blijft interessant hoeveel mensen hier hem blijven ophemelen als een voorvechter van het vrije internet, terwijl hij dat doet omdat hij op die manier tientallen miljoenen verdiend aan andermans werk.

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Op zaterdag 26 januari 2013 21:13 schreef kipknots het volgende:
Gaan we weer met die onzin beginnen?

De meeste muzikanten hebben het niet heel ruim. Niet dat het uitmaakt, want ook al was iedere muzikant stinkend rijk, dan nog zouden ze zelf moeten kunnen bepalen wat er met hun werk gebeurd.

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Op zaterdag 26 januari 2013 21:13 schreef kipknots het volgende:
Gaan we weer met die onzin beginnen?

De meeste muzikanten hebben het niet heel ruim. Niet dat het uitmaakt, want ook al was iedere muzikant stinkend rijk, dan nog zouden ze zelf moeten kunnen bepalen wat er met hun werk gebeurd.

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Op zaterdag 26 januari 2013 23:59 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:

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Dat is meestal zo in de handel.

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Op zondag 27 januari 2013 00:05 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:

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Leg maar eens uit waarom dat slechte vergelijking is.
In de handel verkoop je dingen door een ander gemaakt.
Kim verkoopt opslagruimte.

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Op zondag 27 januari 2013 00:13 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:

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Leg mij eens uit waarom ik zou betalen voor muziek die ik op vinyl heb gekocht en die met vrienden deel?

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Op zondag 27 januari 2013 00:16 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:

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En dan mag ik 't alleen thuis draaien?

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Op zondag 27 januari 2013 00:21 schreef YazooW het volgende:

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Ik heb eerlijk gezegd geen idee hoe het zit met de rechten die je hebt als consument nadat je een fysieke cd hebt gekocht.

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Warner Bros. Targets Kim Dotcom’s Mega With Bogus DMCA Requests

In a bogus DMCA request Warner Bros. has asked Google to remove several links to Kim Dotcom’s cloud hosting service Mega. Not only did the movie studio send in the wrong URLs, they also failed to note that Mega download links aren’t indexed by Google to begin with. Adding to the controversy, Warner Bros does not appear to have sent Mega a direct takedown request for the infringing content in question.

Copyright holders are increasingly trying to take down allegedly infringing links by sending millions of DMCA takedown notices to Google and elsewhere each month.

Unfortunately, not all of their requests are accurate.

Sometimes these mishaps are amusing, such as when copyright holders try to take down their own legitimate content. In other cases errors can lead to thousands of websites being censored by mistake.

Today we discovered another bogus takedown request, one that may bring a smile to Kim Dotcom’s face.

Last week Warner Bros. sent a DMCA notice to Google asking the search engine to remove 964 URLs that allegedly link to infringing copies of the movie “Gangster Squad.” The notice in question also lists 16 links to Mega.co.nz, Dotcom’s new cloud hosting service.

Nothing out of the ordinary, as all file-hosting services store some copyrighted content on their servers. However, Warner Bros’ request is inaccurate on several fronts.

First and foremost, Mega has decided that Google can’t index their site. This means that even if links to pirated content are posted publicly elsewhere on the Internet, Google will not add these URLs to their search engine.

In other words, the URLs that Warner Bros. asked Google to remove were never indexed to begin with.

The second problem with the takedown requests is that the URLs are inaccurate, and don’t point to any copyrighted material. Apparently the automated web scraper used by Warner Bros. can’t handle the format of Mega links, replacing “#!” with “?escaped_fragment=”.

The same errors were later repeated in DMCA notices Warner Bros. sent for other movies, including Argo.

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Op zondag 27 januari 2013 00:29 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:

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Die mag ik delen met familie, vrienden en bekenden.

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Dotcom mag Nieuw-Zeelandse veiligheidsdienst aanklagen

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Kim Dotcom heeft vandaag een belangrijke overwinning behaald in zijn strijd tegen zijn dreigende uitlevering aan de Verenigde Staten. Een rechtbank in Wellington heeft namelijk bepaald dat de oprichter van MegaUpload de Nieuw-Zeelandse veiligheidsdienst GCSB kan aanklagen wegens illegale spionage.

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Kim Dotcom, Megaupload.com Founder, Alleges NSA Involvement In Copyright Case

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NEW YORK -- Can the irascible, voluble and sizable founder of Megaupload.com blow the lid off the National Security Agency's global spying network? Kim Dotcom sure thinks so. In a series of tweets on Thursday, the sometimes bombastic internet entrepeneur claimed a lawsuit he is pursuing against New Zealand's spy agency will reveal that it passed intelligence illegally gathered on him to the NSA.

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Op zondag 27 januari 2013 00:10 schreef YazooW het volgende:

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Opslagruimte waar gebruik van gemaakt wordt omdat er dingen in zitten waarvoor je normaal zou moeten betalen.

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Megaupload says US trying to change rules to allow prosecution

Government is tacitly admitting it can't prosecute now, Megaupload says.

The shuttered file-sharing site Megaupload has accused the United States government of trying to change criminal court procedures to make it easier to prosecute the firm for copyright infringement. In addition to naming CEO Kim Dotcom as a defendant in the criminal case, the US government also named Megaupload, a corporation based in Hong Kong, as a separate defendant.

Megaupload has argued that US law doesn't allow criminal prosecution of corporations based entirely overseas. Federal rules require notice of an indictment to be sent to a corporation's last known US address. But Megaupload has never had a US address, the firm argues, so it can't be prosecuted.

Judge Liam O'Grady rejected that argument in October, reasoning that the government may be able to satisfy the notice requirement by serving papers on Kim Dotcom after he has been extradited to the United States.

On Thursday, Megaupload pressed its case again by pointing to a letter that Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer wrote to the chair of the Advisory Committee on the Criminal Rules, which is part of the judicial branch. The government's attempts to change the criminal rules are an implicit admission that Megaupload is actually correct on the law, the company argues.

"When the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure entered into force in March 1946, organizations, including corporations, were rarely charged as defendants in and of themselves," Breuer wrote. "Organizations, such as domestic corporations, were established, conducted activities, and expectedly maintained a presence in the United States."

Today, in contrast, "the economy is global. Electronic communications continue to displace ordinary mail. Organizations can maintain no office or agent in the United States, yet conduct both real and virtual activities here. This new reality has affected federal criminal practice fundamentally."

Breuer argues that the rules should be updated to allow for an alternative process for serving notice on corporations that do not maintain a US address. A footnote mentions the Megaupload case as an example.

Megaupload argues that Breuer's letter basically concedes the Hong Kong company's argument. According to Megaupload, the letter "contradicts the Government’s repeated contention that it can validly serve Megaupload—a wholly foreign entity that has never had an office in the United States—without regard for Rule 4’s mailing requirement. To the contrary, the Government explicitly acknowledges in the letter that it has a “duty” under the current Rule to mail a copy of the summons to a corporate defendant’s last known address within the district or to its principal place of business elsewhere in the United States."

"By seeking to have the mailing requirement eliminated, the Government implicitly admits it cannot validly serve Megaupload consistent with Rule 4 as currently written," Megaupload claims.

The issue matters because the United States has frozen millions of dollars in assets belonging to Megaupload. The asset freeze is what completely shut Megaupload down, making it impossible for the company to pay its legal bills, hire employees, or run servers. (Although, it hasn't stopped founder Dotcom from raising money for a new company, launched at an over-the-top party at his New Zealand mansion.) Getting the case against Megaupload dropped wouldn't save Dotcom from extradition, but recovering company assets might cover some legal costs while Megaupload's founder and other officials fight their own court battles.

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Dotcom's alleged crimes 'don't exist' - top lawyer - TV News Video

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Kim Dotcom heeft nieuw privacyproject



Kim Dotcom, oprichter van opslagdiensten Megaupload en Mega, wil internetgebruikers hun privacy teruggeven. Dat zegt hij in een interview met New Zealand Herald.

Het zou gaan om een versleutelde e-mail- en instant messagingdienst. 'Ik ben bezig om uit te zoeken hoe ik encryptie kan aanbieden zonder dat gebruikers iets hoeven te doen maar op hetzelfde moment over privacy van militaire kwaliteit beschikken', laat hij weten. 'Jullie zijn allemaal naakt op het internet en ik wil jullie helpen met aankleden.'

Over een naam of een releasedatum van zijn nieuwe project wilde Doctom nog niks kwijt. Wel verzekerde hij dat er binnenkort mobiele apps en clientsoftware van Mega verschijnen.
Bron: Volkskrant

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Op zaterdag 26 januari 2013 21:13 schreef kipknots het volgende:
Gaan we weer met die onzin beginnen?

De meeste muzikanten hebben het niet heel ruim. Niet dat het uitmaakt, want ook al was iedere muzikant stinkend rijk, dan nog zouden ze zelf moeten kunnen bepalen wat er met hun werk gebeurd.

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Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom granted access to police evidence | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Internet entrepreneur to be provided with copies of evidence relevant to US investigation into alleged online piracy

A New Zealand court granted Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom access on Friday to all evidence seized by police in a 2012 raid, bolstering the internet entrepreneur's fight against extradition to the United States to face online piracy charges.

Repeating its decision that warrants used in the raid on Dotcom's home were illegal, the high court ruled that police must provide copies of evidence considered relevant to the US investigation. These include materials forwarded to the FBI.

Any evidence seized in the raid, including computers, hard drives, files, and other materials deemed irrelevant must be returned to Dotcom.

"The police are to review digital data storage devices and return any to the plaintiffs that contain no relevant material," Justice Helen Winkelmann said in a statement. Police, she said, may retain other storage devices but had to "provide a clone of those devices to the plaintiffs".

Acting on a request from US authorities, New Zealand police arrested Dotcom and three colleagues.

Dotcom's lawyers have argued that lack of access to the seized evidence put them at a disadvantage in defending the German national and his colleagues against extradition.

The US has launched a criminal investigation into Megaupload, arguing that it facilitated online piracy, and participated in racketeering and money laundering.

Dotcom, who has New Zealand residency, says the site was merely a storage facility for online files and should not be held accountable if stored content was obtained illegally.

An extradition hearing is scheduled for August, but may be delayed due to separate cases linked to another court ruling that unlawful warrants were used in the police raid.

The copyright case could set a precedent for internet liability laws and, depending on its outcome, may force entertainment companies to rethink their distribution methods.

The US Justice Department says Megaupload cost copyright holders such as movie studios and record companies more than $500m (£328m) and generated more than $175m in criminal proceeds. It described the case as being among the largest ever involving criminal copyright.

Dotcom launched a new file-sharing service, Mega, in January.

Bron: www.guardian.co.uk

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Dotcom Alleges Megaupload Raid Was Part of Deal To Film The Hobbit

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"Kim Dotcom alleges, in an 20 min interview with the Australian public television, that Megaupload was offered up by the New Zealand's PM 'on a silver platter' as part of negotiations with Warner Brothers executives for shooting The Hobbit in New Zealand. He promises that he'll substantiate the claims in court. He also says that the extradition case the U.S. government is weak and the reason behind the latest delay in extradition hearing (postponed from August this year to March next year) is an attempt to bleed Dotcom dry of his money. Also interesting, Dotcom says that the latest debacle of the massive scale online online surveillance by U.S. spy agencies has triggered an 'explosion' of interest in mega.co.nz, the 'cloud storage' site with user generated encryption."

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KimDotcom twitterde op woensdag 19-06-2013 om 15:19:34 VERY BAD NEWS: #Leaseweb has wiped ALL #Megaupload servers. All user data & crucial evidence for our defense destroyed "without warning". reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 14 juni 2013 21:23 schreef admiraal_anaal het volgende:
Ik lurk hier veel maar wil je wel even bedanken Papierversnipperaar voor de updates steeds