New Zealand to extradite Megaupload founder to U.S.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith on Thursday signed the extradition order for Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, according to The New Zealand Herald. U.S. authorities have sought his arrest for over a decade, shutting down his file sharing website in 2012. Dotcom founded the site Megaupload in 2005 and made a fortune off pirated music, movies, ebooks, and video games, according to his indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice. The website was once estimated to be among the top 20 most-popular websites on the entire internet. It cost copyright holders more than of $500 million, the DOJ added. He currently faces 13 charges in the United States, including racketeering, copyright infringement, and money laundering.

What has Dotcom had to say? Dotcom argued that he should not be held responsible for what other people uploaded to his site, according to The Herald. He responded to the news of his extradition order by saying he loved New Zealand and would not leave the country. He indicated in a separate statement that he had a plan for how to avoid his extradition, and reposted a statement from a lawyer working on requesting a judicial review of his case.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report in WORLD Magazine about The New York Times suing OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly using millions of its articles to train its chatbots without first obtaining permission.