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.

In mid 2012 a High Court judge found that the warrants were not only overbroad but also illegal, providing a big boost to Dotcom’s extradition battle prospects with the United States.

However, this February the Megaupload founder suffered a setback when the Court of Appeal overturned the earlier High Court ruling. While it was agreed the warrants contained flaws, the judges found that overall the warrants were legal.

But it’s not over yet.

The Supreme Court has now granted Dotcom leave to appeal the Court of Appeal ruling from February.

“The Supreme Court granted us permission to argue the validity of search warrants used in this raid,” Dotcom announced on Twitter.

The hearing is set for June 11 to June 12.

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

The company currently has around five million users who between them have uploaded close to half a billion files. With a just-debuted iOS app already in hand, encrypted chat and email services are already penciled in for release next year.

As 2013 draws to a close, news from TheDomains.com yesterday stated that following a sale in November, Mega.co.nz had become the proud owner of Mega.co, a Colombian domain that reportedly changed hands for $60,000.

The domain was apparently purchased by cloud-hosting company JustCloud before being acquired by Mega. However, there are serious problems with the story.

TorrentFreak spoke with Dotcom who told us he had “no idea” about the acquisition of the domain and immediately expressed concerns that the .co TLD is under U.S. control. We then spoke to Mega CEO Vikram Kumar who categorically denied the claims.

“Mega Ltd. does not own this domain name and was not interested in bidding for it when it was put up for sale recently. We strongly recommend that people interested in MEGA only visit mega.co.nz directly,” he told us.

Kumar appears to be referring the fact that Mega.co currently diverts to Mega’s payment page and as such is attempting to pass itself off as a genuine Mega domain, which of course it is not. Only adding to the controversy are claims by Andrew Rosener of domains broker Media Options.

“For the record, Media Options had Mega.co under signed contract exclusive agreement at the time of this sale. We had been marketing the name aggressively and likely the buyer was made aware of the sale through our efforts,” Rosener explains.

“However, the seller/owner sold the domain out from under us behind our back and refuses to honor our contract with him. We are currently evaluating how to best handle this and recover our commission that we are due.”

So why are JustCloud (presuming they still own the domain and haven’t re-sold it) now diverting it to Mega’s payment page, even for Mega users that are already logged in? Thus far, JustCloud have not responded to our requests for comment.

Interestingly, while Mega aren’t the owners of Mega.co, they do have another backup domain, Mega.is. The domain is the property of a wholly-owned Mega subsidiary in Iceland and provides food for thought on Mega’s plans and future opportunities.

“Both the subsidiary and Mega.is provide future options for Mega,” Kumar informs TorrentFreak. “In particular, it is possible that Mega.is becomes MEGA’s primary domain
name to better reflect its global operations.”

Causing concern for Mega is New Zealand’s Telecommunications (Interception Capability
and Security) Bill which comes into force in a few months time and could require companies like Mega to put in place an interception capability for surveillance agencies.

“Mega will not allow any compromise whatsoever to its core service values of protecting the privacy of MEGA users or changing its encryption model (end-to-end encryption with user-controlled keys),” Kumar says.

While Mega is taking a “wait and see” approach, the company is prepared to take drastic action to thwart attempts at forcing it to monitor users.

“One such option is to stop offering MEGA services to New Zealanders and thereby remove itself from the scope of the new law. Services to everyone else will continue as usual,” Kumar says.

“However, at this stage, this option is purely theoretical as the law itself is a few months away, its actual impact unknown, and there are several other preferred options for Mega that are far less drastic than that.”

Kumar says that a switch to Mega.is a possibility whether the new law bites in New Zealand or not. In the meantime the message regarding Mega.co is simple – don’t use it.

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

The battle between Megaupload (David) and the US Government and the MPAA (Goliath) started out with a flurry of blows against the New Zealand based site staff, but in recent weeks the blows have all been falling stateside.

Today, the New Zealand High Court ruled that the search warrants used to raid Dotcom’s mansion were illegal, casting uncertainty over the entire ‘Mega Conspiracy’ case.

An earlier ruling by High Court Justice Judith Potter concluded that a previous search and seizure order was invalid because of improper paperwork. The documents were later corrected.

In the ruling, Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann declared the warrants illegal, noting that they were not adequately descriptive of the offenses Dotcom was accused of.

“Indeed they fell well short of that. They were general warrants, and as such, are invalid,” she said.

In addition, the data removed from New Zealand by the FBI (which they claim was ‘not stolen’, since it was ‘only data’) was also ruled to be illegally obtained, and should not have been taken out the country.

“…the release of cloned hard drives to the FBI for shipping to the United States was contrary to the February 16 direction under section 49 (2) of the MACMA [Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act] that the items seized were to remain in custody and control of the Commissioner of Police. This dealing with the cloned hard drives was therefore in breach of s49(3) of the MACMA.”

Winkelmann also voiced concerns over police conduct, questioning if their actions in January amounted to unreasonable search and seizure, with a preliminary view that they did. Along with these concerns came a note that the raid could be considered trespass by the police, not something the elite anti-terrorist team used for the raid will want on their record.

Perhaps the biggest setback for any prosecution relates to what evidence was collected. An independent, and appropriately experienced High Court lawyer will now conduct a review of the evidence to determine what is and is not relevant to the charges Dotcom faces.

Anything deemed not relevant will be returned to Dotcom, and not provided to the US. Anything deemed relevant will be copied to both Dotcom and US authorities for use in court.

While the ruling does not amount to the unequivocal quashing of the search warrants and the invalidation of any evidence collected through them, it is a significant win for Dotcom. Meanwhile a request for the cloned hard drives to be returned (presumably without being copied) has been made to US authorities. The amount of respect for the New Zealand legal system held by US authorities may be inferred by the time it takes to comply with the request.

As for the extradition hearing? That’s still going ahead.

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