Feb. 20 (UPI) — The owner of file-sharing website Megaupload can be extradited to the United States to face fraud charges, the New Zealand High Court said in ruling on Monday.
Kim Dotcom and three others facing copyright infringement, fraud and other charges in the United States can be extradited to face trial, Justice Murray Gilbert ruled on Monday. Dotcom’s lawyers said they would appeal the ruling, which is the second to say Dotcom can be extradited.
Dotcom’s lawyers argued that he could not be extradited because his alleged violations of U.S. copyright law have no equivalent in New Zealand so are not considered crimes.
The fraud charges Dotcom faces in connection with copyrighted material being distributed through Megaupload, the file sharing website he owned and operated until 2012, do apply though, Gilbert said.
“I have found, contrary to the view taken in the District Court, that this section does not provide an extradition pathway in this case,” Gilbert said of extraditing Dotcom based on New Zealand copyright law. “However, I have concluded that the appellants are not correct in asserting that the general criminal law fraud provisions in the Crimes Act cannot apply in cases of copyright infringement and that such cases can only be prosecuted under the Copyright Act. In short, these Crimes Act provisions, in combination with s101B of the Extradition Act, provide other extradition pathways. ”
Dotcom has been fighting to avoid standing trial in the United States on charges that his website enabled the distribution of unlicensed movies and music.
Dotcom, as well as Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato, are charged in the United States with allegedly engaging in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering activity that cost copyright holders more than $500 million.
While an earlier case in the District Court found Dotcom could legally be extradited on all of the charges, Gilbert wrote in his decision that Dotcom’s lawyers are correct about copyright law: Since the distribution of copyrighted content on Megaupload was legal in New Zealand, he can’t be extradited on those charges.
Dotcom and his lawyers said they plan to appeal Gilbert’s ruling.
“I’m no longer getting extradited for copyright,” Dotcom said on Twitter after the ruling. “We won on that. I’m now getting extradited for a law that doesn’t even apply.”
