DOT

Kim DotCom, the flamboyant founder of the now defunct MegaUpload, made news today by announcing the coming of Mega, a new cloud storage service that is similar to MegaUpload.

But with the launch of a service similar to MegaUpload, set for the first of the year, officials in the United States said that DotCom will have misled a New Zealand court and possibly violated the terms of his bail and opened himself up to new charges.

Last January, DotCom and six others linked to MegaUpload were accused in an indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney of operating MegaUpload as … Read more

Kim DotCom is once again making news and thumbing his nose at authorities.

DotCom told Reuters today that he will launch Mega, the son of MegaUpload, near the first anniversary of the police raid on his home and the shutdown of MegaUpload, a storage service accused of hosting millions of pirated movies, music and other digital media.

Police in New Zealand arrested DotCom last January at the request of the U.S. government, which has alleged in an indictment that DotCom and six associates are guilty of criminal copyright violations, conspiracy, and money laundering. DotCom and the other defendants deny … Read more

MegaUpload has been on a winning streak in court, but last week a U.S. district judge denied the company's request to dismiss a criminal indictment against it.

The U.S. Attorney's office has accused MegaUpload and its leaders of operating the cloud-storage service as a criminal enterprise. U.S. officials allege that founder Kim DotCom and six other associates encouraged users to upload pirated movies, music, and other media to MegaUpload's lockers so managers could get rich on advertising revenue and premium subscription fees.

MegaUpload's lawyers asked the court to throw out the indictment against … Read more

U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady will hold another hearing to help him determine what to do with the digital files owned by MegaUpload users.

O'Grady is responding to a motion filed by Kyle Goodwin, an Ohio-based sports videographer. Goodwin has sought the return of the video files, mostly of high school sports action, that he stored at MegaUpload, the Internet storage locker that was taken offline by the U.S. government.

In January, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia accused MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom and six other company managers of criminal copyright violations, … Read more

Officials in New Zealand's government apparently believed the law gave them the right to spy on MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom because he was a foreign national.

They were wrong.

In New Zealand today, Prime Minister John Key apologized to DotCom for the spying conducted against him by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).

The United States has accused DotCom of criminal copyright violations. In January, New Zealand police raided his home and arrested him. Just ahead of the raid, the GCSB began collecting intelligence against DotCom to see if he posed any danger to the police who would later … Read more

After more than a year of negotiations between government agencies, auto manufacturers, and other interested groups such as the United Auto Workers, the Obama administration has finalized rules that will raise the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) to 54.5 mpg by 2025.

The administration had already set aggressive targets, previously calling for a CAFE of 35.5 mpg by 2016. As new advances in fuel-saving technologies showed that this target could easily be met, rules were drafted for the higher mark.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation devise the formula by which CAFE is calculated. The … Read more

The lawyers for Kim DotCom and MegaUpload continue to rack up court victories in New Zealand.

One of the country's courts has ordered the United States to turn over evidence it says it has that proves DotCom committed criminal acts of piracy. The U.S. Attorney's office has accused DotCom, founder of the cloud-storage service, of operating MegaUpload as a criminal enterprise.

U.S. officials say that MegaUpload made over $175 million by enabling users to store pirated digital media, including movies, music, and software on the company's servers. They accuse him of encouraging the looting and … Read more

Kim DotCom, the founder of Megaupload, has promised that disruptive music service Megabox will launch this year.

On Twitter, DotCom sent out the following messages to over a hundred thousand followers:

DotCom, who was born Kim Schmitz, is embroiled in a legal battle with authorities from the United States concerning his former cyberlocker site, Megaupload. Among other charges, the former Megaupload chief is being accused of facilitating "massive worldwide online piracy," racketeering and money laundering, which has cost "over $500 million in damages and earned over $175 million in profit."

Despite the numerous charges and the … Read more

The judge overseeing the MegaUpload case in New Zealand doesn't sound like a supporter of the U.S. government's attempts to strengthen international copyright law.

According to a report in the New Zealand Herald, the United States is attempting to require New Zealand and other countries to adopt tougher copyright restrictions as part of a trade agreement and this prompted the judge to call the U.S. government "the enemy."

The Herald raised the question whether Harvey's comments were appropriate for the judge presiding over the MegaUpload case to make. According to a legal expert … Read more