Kim Dotcom begins final appeal against extradition to the United States

Kim Dotcom, the founder of MegaUpload, has begun his appeal this week in the New Zealand Supreme Court to overturn an extradition request which was granted back in 2015. Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk, and Finn Batato, all former executives at MegaUpload, are all facing extradition to the U.S. following failed appeals to New Zealand’s High Court and Court of Appeal.

According to the FBI, which wants Dotcom extradited, the MegaUpload website earned its founder millions of dollars on the back of illegal file-sharing. On Monday, his lawyers argued that the site wasn't created in order to encourage breaches of copyright and Dotcom himself reiterated this stance via Twitter.

In 2005 I created a website that allowed people to upload files to the cloud. At the time only small files could be attached to emails. Megaupload allowed users to email a link to a file. That’s it.

In 2019 the NZ Supreme Court decides if I should be extradited for this “crime”.
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) June 9, 2019

According to the BBC, if the Supreme Court upholds the extradition order then the final decision on whether to extradite the MegaUpload execs will be left to Andrew Little, the country’s Justice Minister. Should they get extradited to the U.S., the men could face long jail terms.

This appeal is just the latest episode in a saga that has been running since the FBI indicted Dotcom back in 2012 for allegedly knowing about copyright infringement on a mass scale, which, they allege, caused $500 million of losses for film and music producers.

Source: BBC News