Following the example of the United States, the EU began publishing its very own piracy watchlist a few years ago.

The ‘Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List’ is compiled by the European Commission. As in the US, it relies on stakeholder groups to nominate several problematic sites and services for inclusion.

The third iteration of the EU watchlist, published a few days ago, provides an overview of some of the most problematic sites and services. The Commission stresses that the list doesn’t “have any legal effect” and is merely based on “allegations” from stakeholders. However, being mentioned leaves a mark nonetheless.

As in previous years, the EU Piracy Watch List includes a wide range of targets, including online marketplaces that are linked to counterfeiting. For this article, however, we will mainly focus on pirate sites and services.

Progress

The EU Commission starts with some positive news. Following the 2020 report, several of the mentioned pirate sites and services have disappeared.

Bookfi.net, for example, which later operated from 3lib.net, is no longer online. This latest domain name was targeted in the recent Z-library crackdown and currently displays a U.S. Government seizure banner.

The illegal IPTV service Electrotv-sat.com is no longer operating either and the same applies to cyberlocker Wi.to, and Youtubeconverter.io. The YouTube ripper was taken offline by Google through a WIPO domain name dispute

Usual Suspects and Newcomers

The European Commission’s latest Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List still includes plenty of targets, featuring many of the usual suspects. Torrent sites The Pirate Bay, Rarbg.to, Rutracker.org and 1337x.to are all mentioned, as they were two years ago.

The same is true for cyberlockers Uptobox.com and Rapidgator.net, stream rippers Y2mate.com and Savefrom.net, plus other pirate sites including Sci-Hub, Libgen and Seasonvar.ru.

The latest watch list also features several newcomers. These include YouTube downloader Snappea.com and the popular streaming portal Fmovies.to, both of which have millions of regular users.

In addition, the Commission has added more ‘problematic’ hosting companies that allegedly facilitate piracy, including DDoS-Guard, and piracy-supporting services such as 2embed.ru and Fembed.com.

Mega Problem

One of the newcomers that stands out is Mega, the file-hosting service originally founded by Kim Dotcom. Today, Dotcom is no longer involved with the platform and Mega itself aims to be a law-abiding company.

Unlike most pirate sites, Mega has a fully functional and transparent copyright takedown system.

During the first three-quarters of 2022, MEGA removed more than 1.7 million files, which is less than 0.001% of all files stored on the platform. Thousands of users also had their accounts suspended for repeat copyright infringements.

According to the EU report, however, a lack of upload filters and a recent Russian court decision still warrant its inclusion.

“The stakeholders report Mega for the lack of preventive measures to avoid uploads of infringing content. According to their information, in January 2022, ISPs in Russia were ordered to permanently block the site following music rightholders’ actions,” the Commission writes.

Mega Unhappy

Mega is not pleased to be highlighted among the most notorious pirate sites. Not least because the EU Commission reportedly never reached out to hear their side.

“The inclusion of Mega on the watchlist lacks legitimacy and we refute their findings,” Mega’s executive chairman Stephen Hall informs TorrentFreak.

“Unfortunately the Commission never contacted Mega for clarification or comment so they misunderstand Mega and misrepresent our operations. Mega had no opportunity to correct their misunderstandings.”

The company doesn’t believe that its service is a cyberlocker under the Commission’s own definitions . In addition, Mega stresses that it takes its copyright takedown responsibilities very seriously.

Finally, Hall informs us that the Russian court decision cited in the report deserves some nuance. That order was issued without hearing Mega, and was reversed after a successful appeal.

“The claims by Universal Music were based on two public links which had immediately been disabled, consistent with Mega’s published process for dealing with reported copyright claims,” Hall clarifies.

Notable ‘Disappearances’

We expect that Mega will keep a close eye on future submissions to make its position clear in advance. That might prevent its inclusion in the next watch list.

A similar position was experienced by Cloudflare. The Internet infrastructure company was featured in the first EU piracy watchlist in 2018 and responded with rebuttals. Since then, the company is no longer labeled a ‘notorious market’.

Other sites and services have also dropped off the list. For example, the popular file-sharing service 4shared is no longer mentioned, and the same is true for the messaging app Telegram. Why these were removed is not clear.

Most sites and services understandably want to avoid a listing but being mentioned doesn’t have direct consequences.

According to the EU Commission, the report mainly aims to encourage the operators and owners, as well as local governments and enforcement authorities, to take appropriate action to reduce online piracy.

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A copy of the European Commission’s third Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List is available here (pdf) . A list of all the online piracy targets and intermediaries can be found below.

Cyberlockers
– Mega.nz/.io
– Uptobox.com / Uptostream.com
– Rapidgator.net
– Uploaded.net (ul.to, uploaded.to)
– Dbree.org

Stream-Rippers
– Y2mate.com
– Savefrom.net /ssyoutube.com/sfrom.ne
– Flvto.biz and 2conv.com
– Snappea.com

Linking or referring websites
– Fmovies.to (and related domains)
– Seasonvar.ru
– Rlsbb.ru
– Rezka.ag

BitTorrent and P2P Sites
– ThePirateBay.org
– Rarbg.to
– Rutracker.org
– 1337x.to

Unlicensed download sites
– Music-Bazaar.com and Music-Bazaar.mobi
– Sci-hub.tw; sci-hub.cc; sci-hub.ac; sci-hub.bz and others
– Libgen.onl and mirror sites

Piracy Apps
– IPTV Smarters
– Ievpad.com
– Shabakaty

Hosting providers
– DDoS-Guard.net
– Private Layer
– “Amarutu”, also known as Koddos
– AS-Istqservers / Istqserverses (“Istq”)
– HostPalace Web Solution PVT LTD (“Host Palace”)

Unlicensed IPTV services
– BIPTV.best and BestBuyIPTV.store
– King365tv.com / Theking365tv.pro
– VolkaIPTV.com

Social media
– VK.com

Piracy Supporting Services
– 2embed.ru
– Fembed.com

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

There’s an old proverb that goes something like “An offended friend is harder to win back than a fortified city” and that “arguments separate friends like a gate locked with bars.”

Many of us have been there at some point in our lives but most of us don’t have more than 850K followers on Twitter watching our disputes play out in public. Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom does, and in recent weeks his irritation with two former friends and colleagues has started to boil over.

Kim Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, appeared to be great friends and business partners when building and running Megaupload together. Even after the US Government tore the service down in 2012, the trio worked hard to launch New Zealand file-hosting service Mega in 2013, aiming to emulate Megaupload’s success, minus the legal bills.

Criticism of Mega Begins

What happened next is unclear but according to New Zealand’s company register, Dotcom resigned as a Mega director on August 29, 2013. Ortmann gave up his directorship on April 1, 2015, but along with colleague van der Kolk, he still works at Mega today.

During the summer of 2013, Dotcom declared he was done with Mega and was no longer a shareholder. He wanted to concentrate on building Baboom, the music platform concept formerly known as Megabox.

A year later, Dotcom severed all ties with Baboom. Dotcom’s shares in Baboom had been acquired by an early investor in Mega and just a few months later, Dotcom declared Mega “unsafe” citing a “hostile takeover by a Chinese investor.”

In the years that followed Dotcom periodically criticized Mega, including in 2016 when he repeated his claims of Chinese influence while warning users to backup their files . At the time, Mega chairman Stephen Hall said he didn’t know what was motivating Dotcom to make such comments but more than six years on, Dotcom is still making them.

Ortmann and van der Kolk Become New Targets

Turning his attention to former colleagues Ortmann and van der Kolk, last week Dotcom publicly blamed them for his exit from Mega, claiming they had “stolen” the company from him. How this dovetails with previous allegations related to his major falling out with former Mega CEO Tony Lentino, who also founded domain name registrar Instra, is unknown.

Local media reports suggest that Dotcom hasn’t spoken to former friends Ortmann and van der Kolk for years but their recent deal to avoid extradition in the Megaupload case by pleading guilty to organized crime charges puts Dotcom in a tough spot.

“My co-defendants who claimed to be innocent for 10+ years were offered a sweet exit deal for a false confession,” he said last week. And he wasn’t finished there.

After a research team found that Mega was vulnerable to attacks that allow for a “full compromise of the confidentiality of user files”, Ortmann himself responded via a security notification stating that the issues had been fixed.

In response, Dotcom accused Ortmann and van der Kolk of creating “backdoors” in Mega so that the Chinese government could decrypt users’ files. “Same shady guys who just made a deal with the US and NZ Govt to get out of the US extradition case by falsely accusing me,” he added .

Conflict Risks Collateral Damage

Whether this reference to the no-extradition-deal betrayed what was really on Dotcom’s mind is up for debate but whatever the motivation, he’s not letting it go. In a tweet posted yesterday, he again informed his 850K+ followers that the company he founded “ is not safe ” and people who think that their files are unreadable by Mega are wrong.

Shortly after, Dotcom delivered another message, one even darker in tone. It targeted Mega, the company he co-founded and where his colleagues still work. It’s possible to interpret the tweet in several ways but none seem beneficial to his former colleagues, Mega, or its users.

“In addition to security vulnerabilities a comprehensive report about mass copyright infringement on Mega with millions of active links and channels is in the works,” he said .

The production of a copyright infringement report related to Mega or Megaupload is something usually associated with Dotcom’s rivals. Back in 2014, a NetNames report did just that and was met with a fiery response from Dotcom’s former company.

In this case, however, Dotcom claims the aim of the new infringement report is to bathe Mega and Megaupload in the same light, to benefit them both. By showing their similarities, the report will demonstrate that “Mega is still like Megaupload, a perfectly legal dual use technology.”

Whether technology is indeed the crux of this particular problem is up for debate.

None of the charges to which Ortmann and van der Kolk pleaded guilty are technology-reliant but instead stand on a common basis of human intent. Barring technicalities, that’s often where complex copyright cases find themselves hanging in the balance.

But perhaps the most worrying thing about this new complication in an escalating dispute is its potential to affect the minority of users that actually store infringing files on Mega. Any detailed report of “mass copyright infringement” will draw negative attention directly to them, especially if the report includes active hyperlinks as Dotcom suggests.

Couple that with Dotcom’s allegations that the content of user files can be read, any conclusion that this upcoming infringement report hasn’t been thought through from a user perspective can be easily forgiven. That certainly wasn’t the case when users were invited to join the privacy-focused site when it launched.

“Let them look at Mega. There’s nothing to see (because) it’s all encrypted,” Dotcom told Reuters in 2014, scoffing at the prospect of another Hollywood lawsuit.

But even if user files can’t be read in the way Dotcom suggests, a detailed report of live, infringing links on Mega still raises issues for users. When Mega-hosted files are shared publicly, their links carry the necessary information to access the content and those files can be traced right back to user accounts.

As usual there’s a lot to unpack here, with many ifs, buts, maybes, and sundry moving parts. If nothing else though, perhaps the most important takeaway is that when friends start fighting over emotional matters, avoiding collateral damage isn’t always a top priority.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Ten years is a long period of time in anyone’s life so when former Megaupload executives Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk spotted a light at the end of the tunnel, they understandably took it.

After more than a decade of fighting US extradition, the men recently reached an agreement to be charged and sentenced in New Zealand instead.

Not having to spend years fighting a criminal case in the United States potentially followed by a decade or two in prison is a victory in itself but having spent between a quarter and a fifth of their lives in legal limbo, Ortmann and van der Kolk had clearly had enough.

With the authorities in the US and New Zealand holding most of the cards, the men would’ve faced a series of high-stakes gambles by continuing to fight. With the odds of winning diminishing with every new roll and financial costs almost certainly set to explode no matter what the outcome, the decision to limit damages early is also one that allows the men to move on.

Last week the former Megaupload pair pleaded guilty, were convicted by a judge in New Zealand’s High Court, and now await sentencing. The crimes they admitted to in New Zealand are supposed to be similar to those they faced in the United States. In reality they are massively simplified and carry nothing like the maximum sentences available for the offenses listed in the US superseding criminal indictment dated January 16, 2012.

Megaupload Was Intended for Piracy

According to Ortmann and van der Kolk’s charging document, Megaupload was conceived, designed, and operated as a piracy-facilitating site right from the beginning. Together with Kim Dotcom, the trio reportedly noticed how much money Rapidshare was making from large-scale copyright infringement and set out to mimic it.

The objectives of the ‘organized criminal group’ behind Megaupload were to encourage the uploading of highly popular files knowing they were “overwhelmingly” infringing, to host and distribute those files, and to disguise the volume of infringing content on the site. Another objective, according to the document, was to frustrate the efforts of copyright holders who wanted their content removed.

Megaupload generated advertising revenue due to the popularity of the copyright-infringing content. The pirated content also attracted users who were incentivized to purchase premium subscriptions.

Ortmann and van der Kolk admitted that the primary source of Megaupload’s traffic, its primary income, and the reason for its popularity, were all down to the infringing content available on the site. And they knew that mass copyright infringement was hurting rights holders

Participation in an Organized Criminal Group

Ortmann and van der Kolk were convicted on four charges in total. Charges 1 and 2 relate to offenses contrary to sections 98A and 7A of the Crimes Act 1961.

Section 98A of the Crimes Act 1961 states that a person commits an offense and is liable to imprisonment for participating in an organized criminal group.

Under this law and in this case, an organized criminal group is in broad terms three or more people with an objective to obtain material benefits from the “commission of offenses” that are locally punishable by a four-year prison term. If benefits were obtained outside New Zealand and would’ve attracted a four-year sentence locally, the same standard applies.

Section 7A of the Crimes Act 1961 relates to offenses that occurred wholly outside New Zealand but can be prosecuted locally. The legislation has a primary focus on terrorist acts but offenses contrary to Section 98A are also covered.

The first charge relates to offenses under 98A and 7A and carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. The second charge is identical but carries a ten year maximum sentence. This suggests that some of the crimes took place when five years was the maximum sentence for participating in a criminal group. The remainder came after New Zealand upped the maximum to ten years to discourage organized and gang crime.

Conspiring to Cause Loss by Deception

The third charge relates to offenses contrary to sections 240(1)(d) and 310 of the Crimes Act 1961.

Section 240(1)(d) states that someone found guilty of obtaining by deception (or causing loss by deception) by any deception and without claim of right, “causes loss to any other person.” Section 310 states that someone found guilty of conspiring with any person to commit an offense is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years.

In the charging document, various acts of deception are attributed to Ortmann, van der Kolk and/or Kim Dotcom. They include telling NBC Universal that it was impossible to host infringing videos on sister site Megavideo and informing the USTR that Megaupload had a repeat infringer policy, had terminated 120,000 repeat infringers, and deleted infringing content worldwide, not just the United States.

Assurances were also given to PayPal that infringing content had been taken down and uploaders had been blocked but “only a few” of the uploaders were tackled, the document says.

Conspiring to Dishonestly Obtain Documents

The final charge relates to offenses contrary to sections 228 and 310 of the Crimes Act 1961. Section 310 relates to conspiracy (as above) while section 228(1)(a) is much more unusual.

“Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who, with intent to obtain any property, service, pecuniary advantage, or valuable consideration, dishonestly and without claim of right, takes or obtains any document,” it reads.

At the time of writing, New Zealand courts are most likely to hand down concurrent sentences. This means that separate sentences are handed down for each offense committed but those sentences are served simultaneously.

Given that the maximum sentence available for any of the above offenses is 10 years, Ortmann and van der Kolk are unlikely to face a sentence longer than that.

They also admitted guilt as soon as they were charged in New Zealand so there could be a sentencing reduction of 25%. Neither are violent offenders so could be eligible for release after serving just a third of their sentence.

While the sentencing judge will seek to hold the men accountable, after more than a decade of proving they can be responsible citizens of value to New Zealand (and in effect are rehabilitated already), a short sentence isn’t out of the question.

Kim Dotcom believes they may get just two years of home detention but while charges might be negotiable, sentence deals are expressly forbidden .

Finally, it’s worth noting the nature of these charges. Ever since the raid of Megaupload in 2012, Kim Dotcom has warned that if he goes to prison for hosting someone else’s infringing content on Megaupload, that could be disastrous for all service providers in New Zealand since there would be no ‘safe harbor’ for services under copyright law.

Whether by design or not, the charges above may have copyright infringment as the underlying acts but they seem to pose no threat to the status quo. Indeed, they don’t rely on the technical aspects of the Megaupload service at all but instead rest on the trio’s previously private discussions relating to copyright infringement and what wasn’t done to prevent it.

The full charging document can be found here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

After 10 years of legal battles following the closure of Megaupload, former executives Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk want to put their ordeal behind them.

The prospect of being extradited to the United States to face copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering charges proved to be a heavy burden for the men, so when an opportunity emerged to stay in New Zealand, they took it.

This May they announced that a deal had been struck with the New Zealand Government and the United States under which they had agreed to be charged in New Zealand for offenses similar to those they would’ve faced in the US. This meant that they would not have to be extradited to the US and if convicted, any sentence would be served in New Zealand.

Just over a week later, a planned hearing at the Auckland District Court was transferred to the High Court where 50-year-old Ortmann and 39-year-old van der Kolk would later stand accused of conspiring as part of an “organized criminal group” to unlawfully profit from copyright-infringing material.

Ortmann and van der Kolk Plead Guilty Today

The existence of a deal suggested that the men would plead guilty and at the High Court this morning, that was confirmed. Both pleaded guilty to being involved in an organized crime group, conspiring with Kim Dotcom and others to cause loss by deception to copyright holders by hosting and distributing infringing content via Megaupload and its associated websites, for financial gain.

The summary of charging facts states that Ortmann was a 25% shareholder of Megaupload Limited and made around US$19 million from Megaupload. Colleague van der Kolk had a 2.5% share of the company and received approximately US$3 million.

“The defendants’ technical knowledge was indispensable to the creation and growth of Megaupload. Mr Dotcom ultimately determined matters of policy and direction but lacked the practical expertise to carry his wishes into effect,” the statement of facts reads.

“He relied on the defendants to set up and run the technical infrastructure of Megaupload. The offending would not have been possible without their involvement.”

Ortmann and van der Kolk were convicted based on their guilty plea by Justice Sally Fitzgerald. The men will remain on bail and a sentencing date will be decided in October.

In a video interview outside the High Court, the men said that accepting the charges represented another step towards putting the ordeal behind them and moving on with their lives.

“It’s another step towards putting Megaupload behind us,” Ortmann told Stuff . “It’s been 10 years, we are now living in the future with Mega. We have founded a new cloud storage business so there is absolutely no point in dwelling on these proceedings any longer and we are putting it behind us.”

Men Want to Contribute to New Zealand’s Future

After a decade of fighting attempts by the United States to remove them from New Zealand, the men say they are now firmly rooted in New Zealand and want to build a future in the country. Ortmann said the pair want to contribute to New Zealand as good citizens, a sentiment echoed by van der Kolk.

“We’ve worked incredibly hard on Mega and we strongly feel that our rehabilitation process has started a long time ago. We are very proud of what we have built and we are very much looking forward to being able to continue to build, because we still have a lot of work to do,” van der Kolk said.

“We want to focus on productive things and do great things for society – and learn from our mistakes.”

Kim Dotcom Turns His Anger on ‘Former Friends’

Kim Dotcom is not part of the deal struck by Ortmann and van der Kolk. For 10 years he has repeatedly insisted that he will never give in, never accept guilt, and will fight the New Zealand and US governments to the bitter end.

With that being the case, pleading guilty was always off the table but this morning Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield alluded to preferential treatment of Ortmann and van der Kolk to the detriment of his client.

“The real question is why Mr Dotcom has not been offered a prosecution here and why our system of justice has become so preferential to a select few and only when it serves the government’s interest,” Mansfield told Stuff.

As for Dotcom, his attitude towards Ortmann and van der Kolk has shifted markedly in the space of a month. When their plea deal was announced in May, the Megaupload founder said he didn’t blame the men for “giving up.” In a series of Tweets this morning he accused them of stealing a company from him…..

…. and facilitating spying at their new company Mega, via the creation of backdoors, to the benefit of the Chinese government.

The allegations regarding Mega were made in response to a detailed report that alleges that Mega was vulnerable to five attacks that together allow for a “full compromise of the confidentiality of user files.”

Mega was reportedly informed privately of the issues in March and according to a security notification penned by Mathias Ortmann, Mega has now released software updates that fix a critical vulnerability.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

A year after Megaupload was shut down, Kim Dotcom launched a brand new file-hosting service called Mega.

In the years that followed the New Zealand-based entrepreneur cut his ties with the company but Mega continued to expand.

The platform, which has a strong privacy focus, is now the go-to file storage platform for millions of people. Most of these users store perfectly legitimate files on Mega but like many other services of its kind, it’s being abused by pirates as well.

1,187,646 Takedown Requests.

Twice a year Mega publishes a transparency report that reveals the volume of copyright complaints. The latest release shows that in the first quarter of 2022, copyright holders sent 1,187,646 takedown requests.

This is a significant increase compared to previous periods. For example, in the first quarter of 2020 Mega received ‘just’ 264,483 takedown notices.

The higher volume can in part be explained by the fact that the number of files stored on the platform increased from 72 billion to 117 billion in two years. However, the percentage of targeted links also more than doubled, although that’s still relatively tiny at just 0.001% of all files on the service.

“The number of unique takedown requests submitted represents a very small percentage of the total number of files stored on Mega,” the company clarifies.

Mega allows its users to submit counternotices if they believe their content was removed in error. During the first quarter of the year, only two of these requests came in. This is slightly below the average of the past years.

Repeat Infringers

Mega has a repeat infringer policy when it comes to copyright infringement claims. If a user’s content is targeted with three copyright takedown strikes within six months, their account will be terminated.

In recent years Mega has terminated around two to three thousand users per quarter, which is around 0.001% of the total number of users. Since the company’s launch in 2013, nearly 150,000 users have lost their accounts.

This ironically included its founder Kim Dotcom, whose account was later restored.

“Mega has zero tolerance for illegal activity. While fiercely guarding the privacy of legitimate users, Mega will not be a haven for illegal activity,” the company writes, commenting on its latest transparency report.

“The complete March 2022 Transparency Report clearly demonstrates Mega’s market-leading processes for dealing with users who upload and share copyright infringing material or breach any other legal requirements.”

Objectionable Activity

While copyright infringers are a problem for Mega, most users have their accounts terminated for sharing objectionable content. The vast majority of these people share Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM).

Over the past quarters, the number of account terminations related to CSAM content is far greater than those for copyright suspensions. These users were all reported to the appropriate authorities.

Since Mega’s launch in 2013, hundreds of thousands of people have been booted from the platform after sharing objectionable content.

“During the 9 years to 31st March 2022, Mega has closed 744,000 accounts for sharing objectionable content. Details of every illegal link and of every related account that was closed were provided to the New Zealand Government and relevant international authorities for investigation and prosecution.”

Mega doesn’t proactively share any details of alleged copyright infringers with the authorities or rightsholders. However, with a valid court order, the company can be compelled to share user data, which includes IP-addresses , chats, and other personal information.

“If we think it is necessary or we are obliged by law in any jurisdiction, then we are entitled to give Your Files, Your Chats, any Account Data and any Usage Data to competent authorities, even if those items are encrypted,” Mega notes.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

January 2, 2022 marked the 10-year anniversary of the dramatic shutdown of Megaupload and other properties in the file-sharing and streaming empire of Kim Dotcom.

For much of that time, Kim Dotcom and co-defendants Mattias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato have fought extradition to the United States to face copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering charges. Over time, however, extradition has been slowly taken off the table for most of the main defendants.

Former Megaupload marketing manager Batato previously had his extradition case dropped on health grounds and today it was the turn of both Ortmann and van der Kolk to reveal that they too will avoid the US justice system.

“New Zealand is Our Home Now”

In a joint statement published via Mega Limited, the New Zealand file-sharing service where Ortmann and van der Kolk now play key roles, the pair recall that after a Supreme Court decision in 2021 , they were both ruled eligible for extradition to the United States.

Their case was referred to NZ Minister of Justice Kris Fa’afoi for a final and potentially difficult decision. The details of what happened next have not been revealed but the key outcome is that Ortmann and van der Kolk will not be extradited to the United States, albeit with significant strings attached.

“New Zealand is our home now and we want to stay here. The continuing uncertainty associated with the extradition case has taken a heavy toll on our lives and the time has come to move on,” their statement reads.

“Accordingly, we have reached an agreement with the New Zealand Government and the United States of America under which we have agreed to be charged in New Zealand for offenses similar to those we face in the United States. Once those charges are heard by the New Zealand courts, the United States will withdraw its extradition proceedings against us.”

Given that they are now involved in a new legal process, the pair say they will be making no further comment. The same cannot be said for Kim Dotcom, the most high-profile of the Megaupload defendants, who remains eligible for extradition and could face decades in prison in the US.

Dotcom: “Former Friends” Will Give Evidence Against Me

In a series of tweets responding to the news this morning, Kim Dotcom offered his congratulations to Ortmann and van der Kolk for avoiding the “terrible US justice system”, noting that he doesn’t blame his “former friends” and understands why they have “given up.”

Quite when the friendship between the men ended is unclear. They haven’t been seen in public or pictured privately together for years but Dotcom predicts they will now admit liability and help in the case against him.

“My co-defendants in the Megaupload copyright case, Mathias and Bram, have made a deal with the US and New Zealand Government to accept liability and to become witnesses against me. They will be charged in New Zealand and will no longer face extradition to the United States,” Dotcom writes .

“I’m now the last man standing in this fight and I will continue to fight because unlike my co-defendants I won’t accept the injustice we have been subjected to,” Dotcom continues.

“If I have to go to jail for what Megaupload users did on our site then many Big Tech CEOs are in the same boat with me.”

What Next For The Megaupload Defendants?

Dotcom has a reputation as a fighter and may yet pull several rabbits out of multiple hats to a) avoid extradition or b) pull off an extraordinary win in the United States, should he ever be sent there.

At this stage and after a decade of battles and tens of millions of dollars spent in his defense, nothing can be ruled out. But where once there were many diverse options for a counter-attack, opportunities seem to be narrowing.

By appearing to rule out any deal that would find him liable for wrongdoing either in New Zealand or the United States, Dotcom will necessarily find himself up against legal systems and successive governments that he has continuously labeled as corrupt.

Dotcom’s default stance is that his business was destroyed by Hollywood with vital help from President Biden so in response and over many years, Dotcom has launched personal attacks on both Biden and members of his family. The same can be said of multiple politicians in New Zealand too. According to Dotcom, he cannot get a fair trial anywhere.

This has undoubtedly turned Dotcom into a political hot potato, one that refuses to lie down and says he will reject any deal, even if one was offered to him. On the other hand, the positions of Ortmann and van der Kolk, who have remained largely silent for the last 10 years, are much more certain and at least relatively free from the political complications surrounding Dotcom.

The charges the pair will face in New Zealand are yet to be reported but if they are brought under the Copyright Act , financial penalties of up to NZ$10,000 for “every infringing copy” but not exceeding NZ$150,000 “in respect of the same transaction” are available.

The defendants could alternatively face up to five years in prison but if we take Dotcom’s claims at face value, a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity seems to be a foregone conclusion, so significant 25%+ reductions could apply. Add in the claim that the men are set to offer evidence against Dotcom and the fact they are not violent offenders, they could be eligible for release after serving a third of any sentence.

Previously, Estonian programmer Andrus Nomm, who reportedly earned $3,200 per month at Megaupload, pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement in the United States where sentences are usually much harsher.

He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison after going on record that Dotcom and his former colleagues knowingly profited from copyright infringement.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.