The White House is a very important place and it is also a place that is constantly monitored, logged and managed. If you go into the White House to meet the President or Vice President you can be sure that the meeting is logged and recorded (just ask Richard Nixon about that one). Well it seems that shortly before MegaUpload was taken down there was a meeting of some of the major players in the industry (Hollywood) and Vice President Joe Biden. The key players here are;
Warner Brothers Entertainments chief executive – Barry Meyer
Paramount Pictures CEO – Brad Grey
MPA Asia Managing Director – Mike Ellis
MPAA Head – Chris Dodd (Also a close associate of Biden’s)
Sony Pictures Vice Chairman – Jeff Blake
Universal Studios President – Ronald Meyer
MPAA Global Policy Executive – Michael O’Leary
Walt Disney Studios Chairman – Rich Ross (Ross is no longer Chairman at Disney though)
This is documented in White House logs that these individuals met with the Vice President so there is no doubt that the meeting took place, but there is nothing to prove they conspired to have MegaUpload taken down. There is a string of interesting coincidences though that make the possibility much more likely (and when combined with what is already out there the arguments are very convincing).
The first is that one of the attendees of the meeting, Mike Ellis; met with Former New Zealand Justice Minister Simon Power in early 2011 (Power was Minister of Justice then). Mr. Ellis also is credited as being an expert on extradition and was the Superintendent of Police in Hong Kong as well. After the meeting and shortly after the Crown Law Office (Similar to the US DoJ) began its investigation Power denied an application that Kim Dotcom had in for the purchase of a mansion. The application had been earmarked for approval, but it seems that after the meeting no one wanted the sale to go through.
In fact it has already come to light that the ministers were notified of the FBI and Crown’s investigation of Dotcom and back in 2010. Right now Kim Dotcom has already told Torrent Freak that he has been informed that it was in fact Vice President Biden that was the person that ordered the takedown at the request of the motion picture industry. While there is certainly some evidence to support his claim (like the lack of any real evidence, the siege style tactics being used, and the way the FBI wanted to be able to collect everything to try and build the case they should have had in the first place.
This case will continue to get messier as more comes to light. It is further compounded by the fact that it is an election year in the US. If it is true that Hollywood did ask the US Vice President to push this through and that the Vice President did, then this case needs to be thrown out and Vice President Biden investigated (and the appropriate action taken as a consequence). The MPAA needs to understand that they are not in charge of things and our elected officials need to be reminded that they work of us not Hollywood or any other big corporate entity.
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