Giving in to the pressure from content producers who couldn’t bear free file sharing online, U.S. government had launched a sudden onslaught against the very popular file sharing website, MegaUpload, and caused thousands of users to lose their data by shutting down the website. The case against Megaupload is still in the proceedings and it now seems that U.S. government will have to play fairly, not in its usual style.
U.S. government has been trying to have the team behind Megaupload extradited from New Zealand to America where, naturally, it will have its way. But the New Zealand court where the case is in progress doesn’t seem inclined to cave into pressure from U.S. government and wants solid proof corroborating criminal allegations against Kim Dotcom and other Megaupload employees.
U.S. levelled a whole host of allegations against the team, some of them very serious ones. Interestingly, the government didn’t provide any piece of evidence to prove these allegations. It has been demanding the Megaupload team to be extradited to U.S. without first having to present evidence. But the courts have refused that much.
According to Judge Harvey who gave the ruling that U.S. must present data if it wants the Megaupload team extradited to U.S., “In my view there must be fairness and the hearing and balance must be struck, otherwise the record of case becomes dominant virtually to the exclusion of everything else and places the extradition process in danger of becoming an administrative one rather than judicial.”
He further stated, “There is a complex factual matrix and justiciable issues are complicated by the fact that the United States is attempting to utilize concepts from the civil copyright context as a basis for the application of criminal copyright liability which necessitates a consideration of principles such as the dual use of technology or what they described as significant non-infringing use.”
After making this ruling, Judge Harvey has asked the U.S. government to hand over all the evidence regarding Megaupload within 21 days and it will then be decided whether or not the website and the team was involved in any criminal activities.
Source: Scribd
Courtesy: Torrent Freak
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what they described as significant non-infringing use.
the website and the team was involved in any criminal activities.