Information Madness

The prosecutors have made a case that the website was designed with intent to encourage piracy.  When the Megaupload executives come in the court to answer to the charges that they initiated a big online piracy scheme, they are going to be backed by a prominent lawyer who had defended Bill Clinton against sexual harassment charges and also the Enron Company against allegations of corporate fraud. Robert Bennett, a Washington Attorney, is going to represent the Company which was indicted in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia some days back on copyright infringement and other charges.

The United States government shut down Megaupload’s file sharing website alleging that the company facilitated illegal downloads of copyrighted movies and other content. Seven executives were charged. The main person, Dotcom and three others were arrested in New Zealand and three others remained at large.

New Zealand police raided several homes and businesses linked to Dotcom and seized guns, millions of dollars and many luxury cars. Megaupload is based in Hong Kong. The company operated out of a luxury hotel space costing more than id="mce_marker"2, 000 a day.

Stefan Mentzer, an intellectual property partner with the White and Case law firm in New York City, informed that Megaupload will try to argue at least two defences. One is that its service passes on as a safe harbor under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if they can prove that they had no actual knowledge that infringing material was on their system. Another possible defence would be specifically jurisdictional. This is to say that a case cannot be brought in the Eastern District of Virginia against a Hong Kong based company without evidence that they actually directed criminal activity related to the district.

Mentzer feels that both defences would be a challenge against the evidence that the prosecutors seem to have collected against Megaupload. The evidence appears to be strong.