FBI allegedly can't serve foreign company criminal papers.
United States district court Liam O’Grady has warned that Megaupload may never proceed to trial due to the failure of the FBI to serve the accused file locker with criminal papers.
The omission is a serious threat to the procedures US law enforcement and the Justice Department are eager to proceed with.
"I frankly don't know that we are ever going to have a trial in this matter," O’Grady said, according to a report by the New Zealand Herald.
Megaupload’s global lawyer, Ira Rothken, said the reason the company was not served papers for a criminal case was that companies can only be served civil papers if they are located outside the US, according to the report.
Rothkin added that the crimes Megaupload’s key figures are charged with are not extraditable offences.
The procedural error at the US end comes shortly after New Zealand Justice Judith Porter ruled a restraining order on Dotcom’s sizable assets “null and void”.
According to the New Zealand Herald, that order was granted restrospectively last week.
The latest twist in the Megaupload legal saga comes after the US Government objected to Megaupload’s appointment of one of the best intellectual property law firms in the US, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, whose attorneys secured an initial favourable summary judgment for YouTube against Viacom.
The Government has argued the law firm faces a conflict of interest in playing any role in Megaupload’s defence because of the Hollywood clients it has previously represented.
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has slammed the US Government after hearing the latest twist, telling Torrent Freak that the Government has destroyed 220 jobs and threatened the millions of customers whose data is caught in legal limbo as Megaupload’s main hosting provider Carpathia seeks compensation for preserving 25 petabytes of data that some 60 million users may want to access.
“The US government has terminated Megaupload, Megavideo and 10 other subsidiaries, including a company called N1 Limited that was developing a clothing line,” TorrentFreak quoted Dotcom as saying.
Whoops.
You know one of these days we should all agree on a common copyright standard and protection law. But... Not today. No, not today. At least not until the RIAA and it's buddies accept the nature of things. The genie's out of the bottles boys, let it go.
"it takes two sides to end a war but only one to start one. And those who do not have swords may still die upon them." Tolken
Megaupload was a special case. They made millions by specifically encouraging and profiteering off the storage of uploaded material on their service. They would never delete the material, despite having a Safe Harbor agreement to do exactly that, and paid people with membership incentives for uploading stuff like movies that other people would pay membership fees to get the bandwidth to download.
I definitely agree that the genie is out of the bottle and distribution channels are still ridiculously archaic and poorly set up. But in Megaupload's case it was more like the digital equivalent of maintaining warehouses of stolen goods and in direct contravention of agreements they signed on the matter.
Megaupload is, and was, in the wrong. But they went about shutting it down in entirely the wrong way, with the advice and prodding of the RIAA, and now it's about to backfire. While I don't support Megaupload, screw the RIAA.
Never shall innocent blood be shed, yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river.
The three shall spread their blackened wings and be the vengeful striking hammer of god.
I thought the MPAA was more a player on this one, but even if so, fuck RIAA and the MPAA both. They've retarded the progress of media delivery for over a decade now.
The latest twist in the Megaupload legal saga comes after the US Government objected to Megaupload’s appointment of one of the best intellectual property law firms in the US, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, whose attorneys secured an initial favourable summary judgment for YouTube against Viacom.
The Government has argued the law firm faces a conflict of interest in playing any role in Megaupload’s defence because of the Hollywood clients it has previously represented.
... Really? Law firms represent clients on different sides of issues all the time. Unless the lawyer involved is currently ALSO representing the MPAA et al in another case, there is no conflict of interest.
"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
- Theodosius Dobzhansky
There is no word harsh enough for this. No verbal edge sharp and cold enough to set forth the flaying needed. English is to young and the elder languages of the earth beyond me. ~Frigid
The Holocaust was an Amazing Logistical Achievement~Havoc
