In another astonishing development in the Megaupload saga, a judge in New Zealand’s High Court has declared the order used to seize Kim Dotcom’s assets as “null and void”. The blunder, which occurred because the police applied for the wrong type of court order, means that the Megaupload founder could have his property returned.

Just when it seemed that the handling of the Megaupload case couldn’t get any more controversial, a development from New Zealand has taken things to the next level.

Following the raids on Kim Dotcom’s mansion in January, police seized millions of dollars worth of property belonging to the Megaupload founder. But thanks to a police blunder, he could now see all of those assets returned.

On Friday, Justice Judith Potter in the High Court declared the order used to seize Dotcom’s property “null and void” after it was discovered that the police had acted under a court order that should have never been granted.

The error dates back to January when the police applied for the order granting them permission to seize Dotcom’s property. Rather than applying for an interim restraining order, the Police Commissioner applied for a foreign restraining order instead, one which did not give Dotcom a chance to mount a defense.

According to New Zealand Herald, on January 30th prosecution lawyer Anne Toohey wrote to the court explaining that the wrong order had been applied for and detailed five errors with the application.

Justice Potter said that police commissioner Peter Marshall tried to correct the error by applying for the correct order after the raids were completed and retrospectively adding the items already seized.

Although the correct order was eventually granted albeit on a temporary basis, Potter said she will soon rule on whether the “procedural error” will result in Dotcom having his property returned.

The Crown is arguing that since the new order was granted the earlier error no longer matters, but Dotcom’s legal team framed it rather differently by describing the seizure of assets as “unlawful”.

Whether the assets are returned will rest on Dotcom’s legal team showing a lack of “good faith” in connection with the blunder. A hearing to decide if the assets will be returned will take place next week.

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MegaUpload Negotiating To Let US Gov’t Officials (And Everyone Else) Retrieve Their Legit Files That Were Taken Down

Aside from preparing the cases of the Megaupload defendants, a team of lawyers is working hard to grant the site’s users access to their personal data. The cyberlocker is working out a deal with the Department of Justice to allow users to download their personal files. Interestingly enough, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom reveals that these users include many high-ranking US Government officials.

In the wake of the MegaUpload shutdown many of the site’s users complained that their personal files had been lost due to collateral damage.

From work-related data to personal photos, the raid disabled access to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of files that were clearly not infringing.

With most of the news coverage focusing on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and the racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering charges, the fate of these users hasn’t received the attention it deserves.

By taking down Megaupload many of the site’s users were directly harmed. To resolve this matter Megaupload has been talking to the Department of Justice.

“Megaupload’s legal team is working hard to reunite our users with their data. We are negotiating with the Department of Justice to allow all Mega users to retrieve their data,” Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak.

Over the past weeks Megaupload has been looking into the various options they have to grant users temporary access. Interestingly enough, this quest revealed that many accounts are held by US Government officials.

“Guess what – we found a large number of Mega accounts from US Government officials including the Department of Justice and the US Senate.”

“I hope we will soon have permission to give them and the rest of our users access to their files,” Dotcom told TorrentFreak.

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Megaupload millionaire Kim Dotcom has been granted bail after a judge decided he was not enough of a flight risk to keep in custody.

The website’s founder and three of his associates have appeared in the North Shore District Court this morning.

New Zealand police raided Kim Dotcom’s $30 million rented mansion at Coatesville at dawn on January 20, at the request of US authorities.

Dotcom and three of his associates, Mathias Ortmann, Bran van der Kolk and Finn Batato, are accused of internet piracy.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is seeking to extradite them to the United States to face charges of conspiring to commit racketeering, conspiring to commit money laundering, copyright infringement, and aiding and abetting copyright infringement over the internet through the website Megaupload.

Additional charges of criminal copyright infringement and wire fraud have also since been filed by US authorities.

Dotcom’s associates had all earlier been granted bail.

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MegaUpload faces more copyright, wire fraud charges

A U.S. grand jury added more charges against file-sharing website Megaupload and its executives, and also accused them of taking copyrighted content from sites such as YouTube for its own service, according to a new indictment released on Friday.

The founder, Kim Dotcom, and six others employed by the site were charged with eight additional counts of copyright infringement and wire fraud. They were originally charged with five counts of conspiracy and copyright infringement.

Dotcom and four of his co-workers have been arrested and are awaiting extradition proceedings in New Zealand and the Netherlands. Two suspects remain at large.

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American prosecutors have warned that data from users of file-sharing site Megaupload could be deleted from host servers within days.

US officials have blocked access to Megaupload and charged seven men, saying the site facilitated millions of illegal downloads of movies, music and other content.

A letter filed by prosecutors on January 27 said storage companies Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications Group may begin deleting data from Thursday onwards.

Representatives for the two companies declined to comment about the threat of large scale data wiping.

MegaUpload Users Plan to Sue the FBI over Lost Files

In most reports following the MegaUpload shutdown, the site is exclusively portrayed as a piracy haven.

However, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people used the site to share research data, work documents, personal video collections.

As of today, these people are still unsure whether they will ever get their personal belongings back.

In a response, Pirate Parties worldwide have started to make a list of all the people affected by the raids, and they are planning to file an official complaint against the US authorities.

“The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of Megaupload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended,” they announce.

MegaUpload users who want to join in on the action can do so here.

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#WhistleblowingWednesday: Is This The Real Reason Why MegaUpload Was Censored?

In the weeks before the crackdown, Megaupload was planning on launching a new music sharing website called Megabox that looked like it had the potential to completely transform music distribution, and even find a way to pay musicians in the process.

From TorrentFreak, via Digital Music News:

“UMG [Universal Music Group] knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings,” said MegaUpload founder Kim dotcom.

“We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free,” Dotcom said. “Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads.  The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works.”

Seems like MegaUpload was taken down for reasons other than piracy.

This is how the internet will look if SOPA/PIPA/ACTA were to be passed:

www.megaupload.com

Mirror: http://megavideo.bz/

The FBI has shutdown of the world’s largest Internet file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws.

The site has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material. MegaUpload is one of the websites on the MPAA’s ’rogue list’. 

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is arguably the biggest supporter of SOPA/PIPA and has spent millions in lobbying for the bills. 

MegaUpload is fighting back  in court and have filed a countersuit against Universal Music Group.