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MegaUpload lawsuits postponed yet again
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 2 May 2019
The civil lawsuits filed against MegaUpload by the US music and movie industries have been put on hold for six months. Yes, again!
The next edition of Setlist celebrating CMU’s 20th birthday will retell the long drawn out saga of MegaUpload, the one-time file-transfer and video sharing platform shut down by the American authorities in 2012 on copyright infringement grounds.
Since then an awful lot has happened. Although really nothing at all as happened, as US prosecutors have worked their way through the tediously slow process of trying to extradite MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom, and some of his former colleagues, from New Zealand to an American courtroom to face charges of criminal copyright infringement.
Although the NZ courts have generally ruled that there are grounds to extradite Dotcom et al, the MegaUpload team have employed every possible technicality and pursued every possible route of appeal. Which means the extradition case is ongoing.
The music and movie industries sued in the wake of the shutdown and criminal action, hoping to access some of the MegaUpload cash that was seized by the authorities. But most people agree that it doesn’t make any sense going through with the civil litigation until the criminal action is complete.
To that end, at various points over the last few years the lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association Of America and the Motion Picture Association Of America have been postponed. And the latest postponement has just been confirmed, meaning nothing will happen in relation to these lawsuits until at least 1 Oct this year.
And probably not for some years after that.
