Since then the case hasn’t progressed much. Kim Dotcom’s extradition hearing has been delayed until 2015 and most of the recent court proceedings dealt with how the seized assets should be handled.

Two months ago the Department of Justice launched a separate civil action in which it asked the court for a forfeiture of the bank accounts, cars and other seized possessions of the Megaupload defendants, claiming they were obtained through copyright and money laundering crimes.

Megaupload has now responded to these allegations at the federal court in Virginia, with a motion to dismiss (pdf) the complaint. According to Megaupload’s lawyers the Department of Justice is making up crimes that don’t exist.

One of the main arguments is that the Government accuses the Megaupload defendants of secondary criminal copyright infringement, a crime that doesn’t exist under common law.

“The crimes for which the Government seeks to punish the Megaupload defendants do not exist. Although there is no such crime as secondary criminal copyright infringement, that is the crime on which the Government’s Superseding Indictment and instant Complaint are predicated,” Megaupload’s lawyers write.

“That is the nonexistent crime for which Megaupload was destroyed and all of its innocent users were denied their rightful property. And that is the nonexistent crime for which the Government would now strip the criminal defendants, and their families, of all their assets,” they add.

In addition, Megaupload mentions another argument why the Court doesn’t have jurisdiction over the case. It’s a requirement that the infringements took place in the United States, but the DOJ’s compliant fails to back that up.

“Tellingly, the Complaint and the Superseding Indictment together fail to identify a single instance in which an act of infringement — particularly an unauthorized upload or download — occurred entirely within the United States,” the motion reads.

This is true for the alleged infringements committed by Megaupload users and also for the 50 Cent track Kim Dotcom allegedly distributed himself. There is no mention or proof that this infringement took place in the United States.

“Although the Complaint alleges that Kim Dotcom personally distributed a link to a copy of a copyrighted work on, and has received at least one infringing copy of a copyrighted work from, the Mega Sites, the Complaint never alleges where that occurred,” the lawyers argue.

Based on these and several other arguments Megaupload’s legal team has asked the Court to dismiss the DOJ’s complaint. At the very least, they want the case to be put on hold until the criminal case is completed.

TorrentFreak spoke with Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken who explains that this is the first time that they called out the Government for prosecuting “nonexistent” crimes.

“For the first time in the case, with this motion to dismiss, we are attacking the merits of the DOJ’s core copyright claims. We are optimistic that the Court will find that there is no such thing as criminal secondary copyright infringement,” Rothken tells TorrentFreak.

The Government’s efforts are no surprise to Megaupload’s legal team. The civil attempt to obtain possession of the assets fits a pattern of meritless claims according to Rothken.

“The DOJ is trying to win the Megaupload case on procedure rather than the merits,” Rothken told us.

“We are hopeful the US Court will finally decide the threshold copyright issues in Kim Dotcom’s and Megaupload’s favor and bring this global legal matter to a rapid end.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Take Action initiative, which has been in place since 2006, is funded by UK film distributors via the Film Distributors’ Association (FDA). In addition to funding educational campaigns and school resources on copyright, the project also provides night-vision goggles for catching potential pirates in the act.

In a new bulletin FACT and FDA report that nine members of staff from Cineworld, Odeon and Vue cinemas have become the latest to be commended for disrupting unauthorized movie recording in the UK.

“FDA is delighted to recognize the on-going vigilance of our colleagues in cinema exhibition across the UK,” said FDA Chief Executive Mark Batey.

“They are at the frontline of the fight against film theft, and a vital part of our programme to make the UK as secure a market in which to release movies as possible.”

In addition to general recognition, the individuals pictured above were presented with certificates and unspecified cash rewards. Although not quantified by FACT this time around, in the past rewards have varied, from up to £700 per person in 2012 down to £500 per person in 2013.

FACT reports that the nine individuals were involved in seven ‘incidents’, all of which were attended by the police. In five incidents the alleged cammers accepted police cautions, with one incident leading to an arrest.

The latest statistics are down on figures last reported by FACT, both in terms of overall incidents and people being rewarded. During the reporting period April 2013 to December 2013, a dozen alleged cammers of major movies were spotted in UK cinemas resulting in five arrests but no prosecutions. A total of 15 cinema workers picked up rewards.

It’s noteworthy, however, that apprehending those who record movies and then illegally distribute copies online doesn’t have to start and end in the cinema. FACT’s recent private prosecution of a man who recorded Fast and Furious 6 led to a prison sentence of almost three years, even though he managed to record the movie without being spotted. FACT are quick to recount this cautionary tale.

“As the recent sentencing of Philip Danks to a 33 month custodial sentence demonstrates, the illegal recording of films is a serious crime which carries serious consequences, both for the perpetrators and the industry they violate,” said FACT Director General Kieron Sharp.

The latest camming figures reported by FACT vary enormously from events six years ago. Documents previously obtained by TorrentFreak revealed that in 2008 there were 50 camming incidents in UK cinemas, with police attending on just two occasions. One resulted in a couple receiving official cautions but in the majority of cases people observed camming simply left the building.

It’s unclear whether today’s lower figures indicate a growing reluctance to test out the patience of both FACT and the police. However, even for those who do get away with the initial recording, recent events show that subsequently uploading that content to the Internet has the potential to elicit a big response.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Since then the case hasn’t progressed much. Kim Dotcom’s extradition hearing has been delayed until 2015 and most of the recent court proceedings dealt with how the seized assets should be handled.

Dotcom tried to regain his possessions but this effort failed last month. Meanwhile, both the MPAA and RIAA have protected their claims on the Megaupload millions, and now the U.S. Government has joined in as well.

In a complaint submitted at a federal court in Virginia the Department of Justice asks for a forfeiture of the bank accounts, cars and other seized possessions, claiming they were obtained through copyright and money laundering crimes.

The filing starts with a brief summary of the indictment that was brought against Dotcom and his colleagues. According to the Government, Megaupload was a criminal organization set up to profit from copyright infringement.

“The members of the Mega Conspiracy described themselves as ‘modern day pirates’ and virtually every aspect of the Mega Sites was carefully designed to encourage and facilitate wide-scale copyright infringement,” the U.S. attorney writes.

The Government wants the seized properties to be handed over to the authorities, and claims it’s permitted under U.S. law. This includes the bank account that was used by Megaupload for PayPal payouts.

The account, described as “DSB 0320,” had a balance of roughly $4.7 million (36 million Hong Kong Dollars) at the time of the seizure, but processed more than $160 million over the years.

“Records indicate that from August 2007 through January 2012 there were 1,403 deposits into the DBS 0320 account totaling HKD 1,260,508,432.01 from a PayPal account. These funds represent proceeds of crime and property involved in money laundering as more fully set out herein,” the complaint reads.

More than a dozen bank accounts are listed in total including some of the property they were used for to buy.

The list of assets further includes several luxury cars, such as a 2011 Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG with a “Wow” license plate, TVs including a 108″ Sharp LCD TV and artwork in the form of Olaf Mueller photographs.

The Government claims that the possessions can be forfeited since they were obtained through criminal copyright infringement and money laundering, but Megaupload’s lawyer Ira Rothken disagrees.

“Kim Dotcom and Megaupload will vigorously oppose the US Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture action,” Rothken tells TF.

“The DOJ’s efforts to use lopsided procedures over substance to destroy a cloud storage company is both offensive to the rights of Megaupload and to the rights of millions of consumers worldwide who stored personal data with the service,” he adds.

According to Rothken the U.S. ignores several crucial issues, including the Sony Doctrine and the fact that criminal secondary copyright infringement no longer exists.

“The DOJ’s forfeiture complaint ignores the US Supreme Court’s protection called the Sony Doctrine provided to dual use technologies like cloud storage, ignores substantial non infringing uses of such cloud storage including by DOJ users themselves, and ignores the fact that Congress removed criminal secondary copyright infringement from the copyright statute in 1976,” Rothken says.

Which side the District Court judge will agree with has yet to be seen, but with so many parties claiming their cut of the Megaupload assets it’s certainly not getting easier for Dotcom to reclaim his property.

To be continued.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

On May 23 at 07:30, five unmarked cars containing 10 police officers and representatives from the Federation Against Copyright Theft tried to apprehend the man at this former address. That error was quickly corrected and within minutes three cars, four detectives and two FACT officers had made it to the correct location.

The police were looking for Philip Danks, a man from Walsall in the West Midlands. Their information was that the then 24-year-old had cammed Fast and Furious 6 at the local Showcase cinema before uploading it to the Internet.

“I was detained for 3 hrs 12 minutes, out of that I was questioned for approximately 40 minutes,” Danks told TorrentFreak at the time. “One police officer and two FACT officers conducted the interview. The police officer sat back and let FACT do all the questioning, so FACT were running the show.”

Danks was eventually released, but in September police were back, this time arresting both his sister and her former boyfriend. New allegations were made, this time in respect of the unauthorized camming and uploading of the movie ‘Epic’.

In March this year Danks told TF that the police weren’t going to take any action against him. However, after previously keeping us updated, Danks went quiet. Today his fate has been revealed.

Following a hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court, Danks was sentenced to 33 months in prison for recording, uploading and also selling physical copies of Fast and Furious 6.

In Court it was claimed that Danks’ uploading of Fast 6 resulted in more than 700,000 downloads costing Universal Pictures and the wider industry millions of pounds in losses.

It appears that Danks was also very easy to trace. When he contacted TF last year his email address betrayed his online nickname – ‘TheCod3r’ – a handle that is now easily linked to a KickassTorrents upload of the same movie. FACT say it was this username that led them to Danks.

Comments left by TheCod3r on KickassTorrents

While 33 months is no doubt an extremely harsh sentence, there were important aggravating factors. FACT report that following his arrest in 2013, Danks continued to both sell and distribute illegal copies of movies. He was assisted with uploading by Michael Bell, his sister’s former boyfriend. The Court sentenced Bell to a 12 month community order with 120 hours unpaid work.

Both pleaded guilty to committing offenses under the Fraud Act 2006 and the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. 

Kieron Sharp, Director General of FACT said that his organization is grateful to West Midlands Police for their assistance in bringing Danks and Bell to justice.

“This is an important case and an important sentence. Danks was responsible for recording, uploading and distributing the film and was clearly unconcerned at the time about the consequences of his actions, perhaps believing that the internet gave him anonymity. We at FACT have shown that we will find and identify people committing criminal offenses and ensure that they are properly dealt with through the courts,” Sharp said.

The MPAA’s Chris Marcich said that holding pirates to account is vital if the creative industries are to flourish alongside the development of legal services.

“It is important that those making money on the back of other people’s hard work and creativity, paying nothing back into the creative economy, are held accountable and we welcome today’s verdict,” Marcich said.

“This is one important element of the wider strategy to tackle this issue which also includes educating consumers about legitimate online sources of content through schemes like Creative Content UK, working with advertiser and payment processors to cut off the revenue streams pirate sites rely on and blocking illegal sites through the courts.”

Yet again FACT have another very big headline under their belt which will prove useful in their quest to deter those contemplating a similar course of action to Danks. As previously noted, camming on its own is not considered an offense, but couple it with distribution and selling copies for profit and things can get very serious indeed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Those orders ran out in April 2014, with the Crown immediately seeking to have them extended. That application was rejected by the High Court, a decision that prompted celebrations from Dotcom alongside speculation on how he might spend some of the money.

But things weren’t over yet. The Crown filed an appeal against the ruling, and today the Court of Appeal handed down its decision. It’s bad news for Dotcom and fellow respondents Bran Van Der Kolk, Megastuff Limited, and Dotcom’s estranged wife, Mona Dotcom.

The judgment handed down by Judges O’ Regan, Wild and French in the Court of Appeal concerns the High Court’s dismissal of an application by the Commissioner of Police to extend the restraining order over Dotcom’s assets made by a United States Court.

The High Court’s Judge Thomas previously decided that while the Court had jurisdiction to extend the duration of the restraining orders, it would be inappropriate to do so, a decision which led to the appeal.

While Dotcom supported Judge Thomas’ ultimate ruling, he cross appealed against the finding that there was jurisdiction to extend the restraining order. He also contested the Judge’s decision to extend the order pending the outcome of the appeal.

The Court of Appeal dismissed Dotcom’s cross-appeal in its entirety.

For her part, Mona Dotcom supported her estranged husband’s position but also requested that her property be excluded from any extended order. The Court rejected her submission.

“We allow the appeal, quash the decision of the High Court and make the extension order sought by the Commissioner,” the Court of Appeal judges wrote.

“An order is made extending the duration of the registration of the restraining orders issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on 10 and 25 January 2012 and registered in New Zealand on 18 April 2012 for one year from 18 April 2014.”

The decision means that Dotcom will have to head back to court in April 2015 in the hope of regaining possession of his property which includes millions in cash plus luxury cars and jewelry.

In a Twitter response, Dotcom pondered whether the latest decision and others like it might be straining relations between the High Court and Court of Appeals.

“I wonder how much respect Auckland High Court judges have for the Appeal judges in Wellington. Almost all rulings in my case were overturned,” he wrote.

Dotcom’s much-delayed extradition hearing is scheduled for February 2015.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

His lifestyle, one in which he inhabits a huge and luxurious mansion while traveling the country in helicopters, is made all the more interesting by the fact that authorities in the United States, New Zealand and Hong Kong attempted to seize all of Dotcom’s assets back in 2012.

While they succeeded in locking up millions, it’s evident that Dotcom has assets elsewhere and is currently disposing of them.

That’s the argument being put forth by Dotcom foes 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros who have not only initiated legal action in the United States, but have also done so in New Zealand. They’re keeping an eye on Dotcom’s spending to ensure there’s something left for them should they prevail in their legal action.

In a new judgment out today, Justice Patricia Courtney said there is indeed evidence to suggest that Dotcom had been giving “very substantial payments” to
his fledgling “Internet Party” political party. His offer to pay a $5m bounty to a whistle-blower was also noted.

As a result, Judge Courtney concluded that there is “a danger that any judgment obtained by the applicants will go unsatisfied, partly or wholly, as a result of Mr Dotcom disposing of assets.”

In an effort to put the brakes on that possibility, the Judge gave Dotcom until August 20 to reveal all of his assets “wherever they are located” and to identify “the nature of his interest in them.”

However, speaking with RadioNZ, Dotcom said any money he’s spending now has been made since the mansion raids of 2012.

“The assets that they are talking about now are new assets that were created because of my entrepreneurial skill after the raid. So they’re trying to attack assets that have nothing to do with MegaUpload or anything that I have run previously as business operations,” Dotcom said.

However, the $11.8 million in assets already subjected to a criminal restraining order following the raid in New Zealand are also under attack. In April the High Court said Dotcom could have his assets returned. That decision was quickly appealed by the Crown and the case was heard at the Court of Appeal today.

A lawyer for the police told the Court that although the assets are being held under a criminal restraining order in New Zealand, the Court did not need to take into account whether the cases being pursued in the United States against Dotcom were criminal or civil in nature.

The judges reserved their decision on whether the freeze on Dotcom’s assets should continue for another year in addition to the two years plus that have already passed.

Meanwhile, over in the United States, Dotcom lawyer Ira Rothken announced that the US Federal Court had granted a motion to stay all civil copyright litigation against his client until April 1, 2015.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

These devices were able to make “near perfect” copies of any audio recording and the RIAA and others feared this would be the end of the recorded music industry.

The record labels took their fears to Congress, which eventually resulted in the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992. Under this law importers and manufacturers have to pay royalties on “digital audio recording devices,” among other things.

The legislation also applies to some newer recording devices common today, which is now causing trouble for Ford and General Motors. Both companies ship cars with the ability to rip CDs onto internal hard drives and according to a coalition of artists and record companies this violates copyright law.

The Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC), which lists major record labels and 300,000 artists among its members, filed a class action lawsuit on Friday in which they demand millions of dollars in compensation.

TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the complaint (pdf) which states that Ford’s “Jukebox” device and General Motor’s “Hard Drive Device” allow consumers to rip CDs onto an internal hard drive. According to the music group these devices fall under the Audio Home Recording Act and the car companies are therefore required to pay royalties.

Thus far, neither Ford nor General Motors has complied with any requirements of the Act. Both companies have sold cars with these devices for several years on a variety of models including the Lincoln MKS, Ford Taurus, Ford Explorer, Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac SRX, Chevrolet Volt, and GMC Terrain.

In addition to the two car companies, the lawsuit also targets their technology partners Denso and Clarion. Commenting on the dispute the AARC notes that a class action lawsuit was unavoidable.

“Twenty-two years ago, cooperation between music creators and device manufacturers resulted in legislation that led to a digital electronics revolution. But having reaped the benefits of this bargain, Ford, GM, Denso, and Clarion have now decided to ignore their obligations to music creators and declare themselves above the law,” AARC Executive Director Linda Bocchi comments

“While no one likes litigation, Ford, GM, Denso, and Clarion have stonewalled long enough, and we are determined to collect the royalties our members – and all artists and music creators with rights under the AHRA – are owed,” Bocchi adds.

The artists and record labels are looking for both actual and statutory damages, which could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars. In addition, they want to prevent the manufacturers from selling these unauthorized devices in their cars.

The case will prove to be an interesting test of the legality of “recording” devices in car entertainment systems. As is usually true, the law is not as black and white as AARC’s complaint states.

For example, the lawsuit doesn’t mention that the Audio Home Recording Act includes various exemptions for personal use and for recording equipment that’s part of a larger device, such as CD-burners in computers.

It’s now up to the court to decide how cars fit into this picture.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

If the BitTorrent technology would have been protected by patent monopolies, it would have been effectively limited to Mr. Cohen’s original BitTorrent client. Have you used that client? Do you know anybody who has used it? Didn’t think so, and neither do I. Instead, there is an enormous plethora of clients and servers that use the protocol today, and Mr. Cohen’s BitTorrent Inc. is valued at eight-digit dollars. Not to mention the fact that BitTorrent Inc. was subsequently able to buy one of the most prolific BitTorrent clients out there, µTorrent, which would not have existed had the technology been monopolized in the first place. I think most of us have used µTorrent – I know I have.

This shows exactly why it makes so much sense for Tesla Cars to release all of their patent monopolies into the wild, and why the patent monopoly system as such is enormously harmful (the only industry to make a net profit from it is the pharma industry, and that’s because they’re heavily subsidized with taxpayer money). Tesla Cars relinquishing their monopolies means they see this mechanism, and that they realize they need an ecosystem to flourish around their technology – the electric car technology – in order to remain viable themselves. Put another way, it’s not about the size of the pie slice: monopolies are preventing the pie itself from growing exponentially, as they do with any new technology poised to disrupt the old ways.

Just like BitTorrent.

Patent monopolies are far worse than the copyright monopolies we deal with (and all break) on a daily basis. Imagine for a moment if copyright monopoly vultures didn’t care if you had made an actual copy, that you would be just as guilty of infringement even if you had never seen or heard of the original? That’s how patent monopolies work, and that’s the key difference between patent monopolies and copyright monopolies: the latter protect a specific expression against copying, the former protect an idea or a form from being utilized anywhere, even independently. It’s also why patent monopolies are much, much more harmful than copyright monopolies (and that’s saying a lot).

But as the Tesla example shows, patent monopolies don’t stop at not making sense as a whole. They also don’t make sense to a single company in isolation, as they prevent an ecosystem taking shape. It’s one of the worst cancers in the economy, as investors describe them today.

It’s easy to argue that patent monopolies don’t hit ordinary families in the same way that copyright monopolies, that patent monopolies have not sued families out of their homes merely for taking part in society’s culture. But that’s about to change with 3D printing, where rapid fabrication becomes available to the masses. It is – unfortunately – a safe prediction that people will soon be sued out of their homes merely for manufacturing their own pair of slippers, because it violated a design patent monopoly somewhere. Such a notion may seem ridiculous today. Then again, so did everything else we’ve seen with the copyright monopoly so far, and patent monopolies are guarded far more harshly.

The BitTorrent legacy doesn’t just show us how to break the copyright monopoly in a specific case. It gives us a blueprint for how to disrupt old ways in general by ditching legal monopolies, a blueprint that Tesla Cars is now choosing to follow.

The patent monopoly wars are coming, right on the heels of the copyright monopoly wars, as were they merely a logical extension. That’s why it’s so encouraging to see our tip-of-the-spear entrepreneurs denouncing and releasing their own monopolies right ahead of these battles with corporate lawyers.

As a final note, it’s noteworthy that Tesla Cars isn’t the only company that Elon Musk is running. He’s also at the helm of SpaceX. Space technology has been ridiculously proprietary up until now, nothing cooperating with anything else and everything being custom-built single-use. That’s why it makes me enormously excited to see an entrepreneur who understands the damages of monopolies at the forefront of space technology today.

It holds a promise of standardized, interoperable space technology. As in, “for all of us”. Like BitTorrent.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The two main players on this front are FACT, the Hollywood-affiliated Federation Against Copyright Theft and PIPCU, the City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Both have been very active recently, with the latter doing most of its work in the past 10 months or so.

While there are few big announcements from either group, a new UK government report now provides updated statistics from both. The numbers in the just-published IP Crime Highlight Report 2013/2014 show considerable activity, for FACT over the past 12 months and for PIPCU since September last year.

PIPCU

The headline figure from PIPCU indicates that the unit is currently investigating ‘IP Crime’ to the value of £28,869,991, which in the overall scheme of things doesn’t seem big by industry standards. Music sales alone were worth more than £1 billion in the UK during 2013 and it’s not unusual for the industry to claim piracy rates in excess of 90%.

Still, the police unit is not only about investigation, but also about disruption, and their aim to have the domains of infringing sites suspended has reportedly enjoyed some success. According to the new stats, since September 2013 PIPCU have had a hand in the suspension of 2,359 .co.uk domain names. It’s a significant number, no doubt, but the disruption one might expect from such broad action has certainly not been reflected in the press.

Other figures presented by the government relate to the execution of 15 search warrants. No further details have been provided but the action against a local streaming link site accounted for at least one of them.

The final piece of information from PIPCU relates to the current “follow the money” approach employed by anti-piracy groups worldwide. The unit claims to have suspended the ability of 19 websites to process payments, although no detail is given on the nature of the sites from where the processors backed out. PIPCU do work with PayPal, MasterCard and VISA, so it’s likely they’ll be somewhere in the chain.

FACT

Without doubt, FACT are the busiest ‘boots on the ground’ anti-piracy group in the UK and the most likely to trouble UK-based file-sharing site operators.

According to the report, in the past 12 months alone FACT has managed to close down 117 ‘pirate’ websites. No further details are provided but the group works on a number of levels, from scaring operators via email to physically arriving at their home addresses. When site operators have been brave enough to talk we have reported on a few instances here at TF, but in nothing like the numbers suggested in the report.

FACT also claim to have targeted people higher up the food chain in the past 12 months, after having a hand in the arrest of seven “alleged” release group members. The inclusion of the word ‘alleged’ suggests ongoing cases, but it’s certainly possible that FACT are referring to individuals arrested in the West Midlands last year.

In addition to having another 10 websites blocked by UK ISPs following action in the High Court, FACT secured the first ever UK conviction of an individual streaming live football matches over the Internet. The case involved the operators of a website called FreeLiveFooty, both of which were arrested in 2010 following complaints from the Premier League.

“FACT’s successes in the past year show the benefits of intelligence led, targeted actions against criminal websites and the people behind them,” FACT’s Eddy Leviten told TorrentFreak. “We also help to guide consumers to legitimate entertainment sources online, in cinemas and on TV.”

News-shy

While both PIPCU and FACT do make the occasional announcement on achievements, there is a tendency for them to work under the radar.

For example, while FACT has on occasion pressed the big publicity button, such as when they took the BBC along to the home of a file-sharing site operator, often the only reports to surface are the ones published here on TF with the assistance of FACT targets (for example 1,2,3,4,5)

PIPCU also tend not to shout too loudly or too often about their achievements, action against counterfeit domain names and other sundries aside. Again, word often reaches TF of attempted domain seizures or threatening letters way before the police make any announcement, if they ever do. Why they take this approach isn’t clear, but the fact that some attempts fail, such as recently with torrent index Torrentz, is certainly a motivator to keep things low-key.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In a response last month, Megaupload’s legal team asked the court to freeze both cases in order to protect their clients’ Fifth Amendment rights not to implicate themselves in advance of the U.S. Government’s criminal case against them.

The movie and music companies were not opposed to a limited cease-fire, although they specified a few conditions under which that could take place. Among other things, they want to retain the option of freezing Megaupload’s assets at home and abroad.

This is relevant, since New Zealand’s High Court previously said it would not extend the foreign restraining order against his assets, and if the Government loses the appeal Megaupload’s fortune will be released.

Fearing that Megaupload and its accused employees would quickly move the millions in assets, the movie studios started a civil assets freezing request in New Zealand, and this week the record labels followed suit.

In a new filing submitted to the U.S. federal court Megaupload is hoping to put a stop to these efforts. TorrentFreak spoke to Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken who accuses the movie studios and record labels of playing a procedural game.

“The recording and film studios are engaging in a procedural game to try to freeze Kim Dotcom’s assets so they and the DOJ can win on procedure and not on the merits,” Rothken tells TorrentFreak.

Megaupload’s legal team is asking the U.S. federal court not give the entertainment industry companies a “carte blanche” to come after the assets, wherever and whenever they choose. In their filing Megaupload brings up a variety of arguments, including a likely violation of Fifth Amendment and due process rights of the defendants.

According to Rothken it eventually all boils down to money. As long as Megaupload is deprived of access to its assets, it will have less fighting power in court, which puts its adversaries at an advantage

“These copyright cases cost tens of millions of dollars to defend. The studios and the DOJ have a healthy concern that if Kim Dotcom can have the funds and evidence to mount a fair defense, he and the others will prevail,” Rothken says.

Megaupload is prepared to argue its case in court as long as it’s a fair fight. Rothken brings up the example of YouTube, which recently scored a victory in the U.S. in its long running copyright case against Viacom. Megaupload wants a similar trial without dirty games, in which it can show that it operated in accordance with the law.

“Megaupload and Kim Dotcom are entitled to assert the same copyright safe harbors that YouTube recently used to defeat similar claims, and that ought not be meddled with in a single hearing based on a flimsy record, with evidence locked away, and prior to a civil trial on the merits,” Rothken tells TF.

“Indeed a number of studios applauded Kim Dotcom and Megaupload in writing for their track record in handling takedowns,” he adds.

It’s now up to the court to decide what steps to take next, and whether the movie studios and record labels can continue to go after Megaupload’s assets while the criminal case is ongoing.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.