Megauploads founder To Be Extradicted To The US

A judge in New Zealand has ruled that Internet entrepreneur
Kim Dotcom can be sent back to the U.S. where he faces
criminal charges.
Dotcom and three of his former business associates --
Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk -- are
eligible for extradition under Wednesday's decision.
Dotcom, the millionaire founder of Megaupload a file-
sharing site that became one of the Internet's largest
bastions of pirated content -- is wanted in the U.S. for
reproducing and distributing copyrighted content from
movies to e-books on a massive scale.
The New Zealand decision on Wednesday moves Dotcom's
long-pending case forward. For some time, it was unclear
whether Dotcom's alleged crimes would make him eligible
for extradition under New Zealand's treaty with the U.S.
The extradition decision also faced several delays.
Megaupload was shut down in January 2012 by U.S.
federal agents, after Dotcom and other former co-workers
were arrested by New Zealand police acting in conjunction
with U.S. authorities. The group was indicted with several
crimes.
Dotcom, born 1974 as Kim Schmitz in Germany, has long
said Megaupload was simply a file-sharing website, and that
he shouldn't be taken to blame for what others were
uploading.
He first attracted the attention of authorities in his early 20s
when he was convicted of a number of offenses, including
computer fraud.
Dotcom's lawyer, Ira Rothken, tweeted after the decision
that the "team looks forward to having the U.S. request for
extradition reviewed in the High Court. We have no other
comments at this time."
Dotcom also took to Twitter after the decision to thank his
supporters.
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http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/22/technology/kim-
dotcom-us-extradition/
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