Dotcom faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted in the US of piracy, which authorities say cost copyright owners hundreds of millions of dollars

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The high court in New Zealand has ruled Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the United States to face a multitude of charges including money laundering and copyright breaches.

US authorities had appealed for Dotcom’s extradition to face 13 charges including allegations of conspiracy to commit racketeering, copyright infringement, money laundering and wire fraud.

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The German national, who has permanent residency in New Zealand, faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted in the US of piracy, which authorities say cost copyright owners hundreds of millions of dollars.

It is nearly five years since Dotcom, a self-described “internet freedom fighter”, was arrested in a dramatic police raid on his mansion near Auckland after the FBI shut down Megaupload’s servers.

Dotcom claimed Megaupload was a genuine file-sharing site that did its best to police copyright infringement but had 50 million daily users and could not control every aspect of their activity.

Denying any wrongdoing, Dotcom has accused US authorities of pursuing a vendetta against him on behalf of politically influential Hollywood studios.

The FBI alleges Megaupload netted more than US$175m in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners more than US$500m by offering pirated content.

After the ruling, he tweeted:

Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) New Zealand Copyright Law (92b) makes it clear that an ISP can't be criminally liable for actions of their users. Unless you're Kim Dotcom?

A statement from Dotcom’s barrister Ron Mansfield said the outcome was “extremely disappointing” but his legal team were far from defeated and planned to appeal the extradition order in the “politically charged and misunderstood case”.

“The High Court has accepted that Parliament made a clear and deliberate decision not to criminalise this type of alleged conduct by internet service providers, making them not responsible for the acts of their users,” the statement read.

“For the Court to then permit the same conduct to be categorised as a type of fraud in our view disrupts Parliament’s clear intent. The High Court decision means that Parliament’s intended protection for internet service providers is now illusory. That will be a concern for internet service providers and impact on everyone’s access to the internet.”