TorrentFreak

In a filing just submitted to a U.S. federal court Megaupload is using the Government’s own words against it, hoping to get the case against it dismissed. Megaupload points out that the Department of Justice is trying to change the law to legitimize the destruction of Megaupload. The DoJ wants to amend the law so that it’s possible to serve foreign defendants, while it previously argued in court that the authorities didn’t require such power.

Yet more embarrassing information on the Kim Dotcom spying fiasco has surfaced in New Zealand. Documents show that in December 2011 when the spying began, police already had information which stated that Dotcom – codenamed “Billy Big Steps” – was a NZ resident. As those deemed responsible are held accountable, the GCSB spy agency’s deputy director has become the first high-profile casualty, and the Prime Minister is warning of more “big changes” to come.

Kim Dotcom made a virtual appearance in the U.S. yesterday, at the SXSW festival in Austin. The Megaupload founder talked about the ongoing legal battle with the Government and is confident that he won’t end up in jail. The flamboyant Internet entrepreneur further criticized a recent study which suggested that Megaupload’s shutdown positively impacted digital movie sales.

A new paper suggests that revenues from digital movie sales and rentals were positively impacted after the shutdown of Megaupload. Researchers from Wellesley College and Carnegie Mellon University compared the income from 12 countries with varying Megaupload usage. They conclude that the shutdown caused a 6-10% increase in digital movie revenues for two major Hollywood studios.

More than a year after Megaupload was shutdown by the feds the site still has millions of visitors every month. Even without content the defunct file-hosting site is among the top 2,500 most-visited websites on the Internet, and only sightly behind Kim Dotcom’s new Mega. The baffling statistics show once again how enormous the site was.

The Department of Justice has responded to Megaupload’s claims that they “planted” evidence and tried to mislead the court. According to United States Attorney Neil MacBride these allegations are “sensationalist rhetoric” and a “conspiracy theory.” The Government says it never asked Kim Dotcom’s file-hosting service to preserve any infringing files, and asks the court to deny Megaupload’s request to be heard on the matter.

Today a few dozen people were invited to try Mega, the new and improved version of the defunct Megaupload file-hosting service. With “The Privacy Company” as Mega’s slogan, Kim Dotcom and his team are making it clear that they are doing their best to secure the files of their users. Our first impression confirms that the encryption indeed works brilliantly, but those who are looking for complete anonymity might be a bit disappointed.