Fortunately this does not mean that they are heading to the US nor does it establish guilt. It only means that the Megaupload four have not gotten the idea thrown out. Of course, there will be appeals from the group. The same would have happened if Dotcom had won. What is interesting is that unless the US DoJ pulled some new and incredible evidence from their pocket we are not sure what would be compelling enough to allow this. If you consider the illegality of the search warrant, the illegal transport of evidence outside of NZ, and the continued request to starve Dotcom and the others out (removing funds for proper legal counsel). You would think that any evidence brought forward would be highly suspect.

Since the beginning we have called this for what it is; a siege on the group and a message to anyone else that might be considering a file sharing endeavor that allows independent artists a method of distributing their work without the need of the MPAA, RIAA and even some of the software cartels. The “investigation” coincides with talk of Dotcom’s idea for a service to do everything we mentioned above. It is also very telling that the US DoJ, at the request of the MPAA and RIAA, confiscated ALL user data that was stored in the Megaupload servers. This was meant to dissuade people from using file sharing services including artists that were serving their own content from there. The seizure also was intended to make sure other large hosting companies would shy away from working with other file sharing services. It serves no other purpose.

The US has learned many lessons from the case against Dotcom and Megaupload. They have set up treaties like the TPP to remove the legal barriers that citizens of other countries have. The copyright cartels have a vast amount of sway in the US government and continue to gain power and rights that no corporation should have. Often they send take down request, domain seizures and worse without any validation. Requests sent to Google, Yahoo, and ICE are acted upon without any proof or recourse. We have had videos marked for copyright infringement that were 100% original content all with a single complaint. To call this situation lopsided is a gross understatement.

Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato, and Bram van der Kolk still have legal options that might pan out for them to get the chances of extradition tossed out. If it makes it up to Justice Minister Amy Adams, the person that would actually grant the request, it is likely that pressure from the US Government would seal their fate… sadly all in the name of keeping the copyright cartels happy and ensuring that the money continues to flow into reelection campaigns…