The lawyers of besieged MegaUpload wants the US government's case against the file hosting provider thrown out of court.
MegaUpload's attorneys claims that the US government acted rashly in taking down the entire website, and seeking the extradition of the site's owner, Kim DotCom, who currently resides in New Zealand.
The issue of jurisdiction is extremely complicated in the MegaUpload case, as the company is actually incorporated in Hong Kong. With no offices in the US at all, MegaUpload's lawyers argue, it is impossible to even serve criminal summons. "In short, a corporation such as Megaupload cannot be brought within the jurisdiction of this court for criminal proceedings absent its consent," states filings to the court made by MegaUpload's lawyers.
But MegaUpload did lease servers in the United States, and its primary domain name, being a .com, also falls under US jurisdiction.
DotCom, who is also not a US citizen, says that MegaUpload has been run as a legitimate business that offers hosting for digital files users are able to upload. That some of these files were infringing on the copyright of US businesses does not mean that the MegaUpload would be liable for these uploads, the company argues.
Attorney Ira Rothken, who leads MegaUpload's worldwide legal defence, feels the US government has overreacted and lacked probably cause to take down the entire website. "(the US government) would have to hold the company criminally responsible for the acts of copyright infringement committed by its users. And there is no such thing as criminal secondary copyright infringement," Rothken noted.
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