Kim Dotcom, who is facing criminal charges relating to the defunct file-sharing website Megaupload, is to be extradited to the US, the New Zealand justice minister has said.
German-born Dotcom has New Zealand residency and has been fighting extradition to the US since 2012 following an FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion.
The justice minister, Paul Goldsmith, had signed an extradition order for Dotcom, a spokesperson said on Thursday.
“I considered all of the information carefully, and have decided that Mr Dotcom should be surrendered to the US to face trial,” Goldsmith said in a statement.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Dotcom said: “The obedient US colony in the South Pacific just decided to extradite me for what users uploaded to Megaupload,” in what appears to be a reference to the extradition order.
People came on your land and broke the law.
YOU’RE RESPONSIBLE!
People can get injured on my land by actions they take, and I get sued. I’m not saying it makes sense.
But the dude knew full well what he was doing and profited off of piracy. The US has some things to say about that. But apparently no one can read that I said I don’t condone the US here. Maybe the word “condone” confuses people, I don’t know.
Not a good analogy. More like he set up a bunch of lockers on his land, and some people put drugs in them. Not as cut and dry.
Wait is this for real? Liability works like this? I rent a storage unit – does that mean I can send the owners of the storage company to jail if I put drugs in my unit?
It’s more like you had a storage unit, and let people do whatever they want with it, but it’s implied it’s used for illegal activity. And then you have full control to stop or prevent them from doing illegal activities, and choose not to.
“The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution.”
I know that is a Canadian ruling and the US might have a different take. Just saying that is a realistic interpretation.
If it’s determined there’s liability, maybe. I don’t know about jail but a victims family absolutely could sue in civil court in the US.
I don’t know about specifics but there are absolutely cases and laws around determining when and if a storage company in this case should have known. Also for things like kids breaking into your derelict building and hurting themselves and a million other things.
Don’t ask me to get into whether the laws around establishing liability are correct or ethical, I barley know any details in my own country let alone others (and what international treaties apply). But you asked a question and the answer is: it depends but, yes, sometimes.