The MegaUpload Saga has been a crazy roller coaster ride the likes of which the world hasn’t seen in a very long time. It’s a shame that more people aren’t paying attention to it since it has the potential set a lot of precedents when it comes to copyright laws. Well, those people might be off the hook now since the case might amount to nothing.
The NZHerald is reporting that the U.S. judge in the case, Liam O’Grady, has told the FBI that MegaUpload was never formally served with criminal papers in the U.S. MegaUpload’s lawyer, Ira Rothken, said that companies, unlike people, can’t be served outside of the U.S. The judge said that all this leaves MegaUpload “kind of hanging out there.”
It makes you wonder why the FBI didn’t know about this when they seized all of MegaUpload’s servers and accused the company of running an international copyright infringement ring. Surely they must have known that what they were doing was illegal. At least it’s not without precedent since the authorities who seized Dotcom’s belongings filed the wrong warrant which may get Dotcom his belongings back.
Of course, Dotcom thinks this goes much deeper beyond some simple oversight. He believes that the U.S. government knew the entire time what they were doing lacked any legal merit. They prematurely seized his Web sites as a way to ruin his business. Speaking to TorrentFreak, Dotcom was livid at the news that the trial against him may never happen. He said that this whole fiasco has destroyed 220 jobs and denied millions of users access to their data.
Dotcom also spoke on what he views as corruption of the highest degree. He claims that the “Mega takedown was possible because of corruption on the highest political level, serving the interests of the copyright extremists in Hollywood.” In a sense, he says that MegaUpload has become a “re-election pawn.”
Even if Dotcom never recovers his business and he loses everything, he isn’t going to give up. This whole attack on his business has been personal and expose the machinations that made it possible. He told TorrentFreak that “It is just a matter of time until the truth comes out. We are working on that and we are making good progress.”
I think that this case has officially entered into the realm of insane. Regardless of whatever happens, this is one for the history books – either as one of the biggest moves against copyright infringement or one of the biggest legal blunders the United States has ever committed. We’ll keep you updated on whatever may happen in the MegaUpload Saga.