U.S. Judges Says Megaupload May Never Go To Trial
The US government, and the entertainment industry through their trade groups like MPAA and RIAA, has a lot riding on the Megaupload case but they also have one really big problem facing them as well which was pointed out by Judge O’Grady, the judge handling the Megaupload trial.
In a recent article the judge is quoted as saying that he isn’t even sure that there will be a trial in the matter and if there isn’t it will be because of a huge procedural error committed by the US government.
It turns out that Megaupload has never been served with criminal charges which is a requirement before any trial can even start.
Judge O’Grady informed the FBI that Megaupload was never served with criminal charges, which is a requirement to start the trial. The origin of this problem is not merely a matter of oversight. Megaupload’s lawyer Ira Rothken says that unlike people, companies can’t be served outside US jurisdiction.
“My understanding as to why they haven’t done that is because they can’t. We don’t believe Megaupload can be served in a criminal matter because it is not located within the jurisdiction of the United States,” Rothken says.
Megaupload’s lawyer adds that he doesn’t understand why the US authorities weren’t aware of this problem before. As a result Judge O’Grady noted that Megaupload is “kind of hanging out there.”
via TorrentFreak
The US Government is claiming that Kim Dotcom is running a criminal operation with the indictment against him including charges like engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering, and a bunch more.
If this latest claim, especially coming from a US judge, is true this case just keeps getting more and more interesting and could end up having far ranging impacts and not the kind the entertainment industry or the government want.
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Steven Hodson Steven has been around the tech world long enough to see most of the stuff we think of cool happen before which leads to a certain bit of cynicism that has contributed to him being known as the cranky old fart of the Internet. Besides sharing some of the goodness that he finds with you here at 42x you can also find him curating some digital goodness at Winextra (tech type stuff) and Rotten Gumdrops (for your daily dose of WTF).
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