Defunct Megaupload targeted in lawsuit
Six major movie studios have sued file-sharing website Megaupload and its founder Kim Dotcom, claiming it “facilitated and encouraged” copyright infringement.
In a lawsuit filed yesterday, April 7, the studios claim the now defunct website carried out “large scale” IP theft by providing popular content to “millions of users” without authorisation.
Twentieth Century Fox, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures, Universal City Studios, Columbia Pictures and Warner Brothers are the plaintiffs in the complaint, filed at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Megaupload, founded in 2005, was one of the largest file-sharing websites in the world. At the time it was shut down it had around 150 million active users.
It was owned by businessman Kim Dotcom until it was shut down in 2012 by the US government, which accused it of costing copyright holders in excess of $500 million.
“On a daily basis, defendants intentionally infringed plaintiffs' copyrighted motion picture and television programs on a massive scale and for a substantial profit,” the complaint said.
“Defendants carried out this intentional, large-scale theft of plaintiffs' IP primarily through the operation of the Megaupload website, as well as associated websites like the video streaming service [Megavideo],” it added.
Dotcom, real name Kim Schmitz, has fought a long-running legal battle over the case in New Zealand, where he currently lives.
He is fighting extradition to the US to face charges of copyright infringement on a "massive” scale.
In a statement on the lawsuit, Steven Fabrizio, global general counsel of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the organisation which represents the six studios, said Megaupload used to pay its users for content uploaded.
“Megaupload was built on an incentive system that rewarded users for uploading the most popular content to the site, which was almost always stolen movies, TV shows and other commercial entertainment content,” Fabrizio said.
Dotcom rejected the claims. He tweeted that files bigger than 100MB in size "did not earn rewards".
The movie studios are seeking damages and profits from Megaupload, as well as attorneys’ fees.
Also named in the lawsuit is Vester Limited, the majority shareholder of Megaupload Limited; Mathias Ortmann, the chief technical officer; and Bram van der Kolk, who oversaw programming.
