Kim Dotcom, who is facing criminal charges relating to the defunct file-sharing website Megaupload, is to be extradited to the US, the New Zealand justice minister has said.

German-born Dotcom has New Zealand residency and has been fighting extradition to the US since 2012 following an FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion.

The justice minister, Paul Goldsmith, had signed an extradition order for Dotcom, a spokesperson said on Thursday.

“I considered all of the information carefully, and have decided that Mr Dotcom should be surrendered to the US to face trial,” Goldsmith said in a statement.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Dotcom said: “The obedient US colony in the South Pacific just decided to extradite me for what users uploaded to Megaupload,” in what appears to be a reference to the extradition order.

  • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 months ago

    the whole math of “stole $500 million” is stupid. That is hypothetical money. It is just not true that all people would have purchased instead without megaupload.

    “Which generated $175 million for the site” that’s more like it. Making money with other people’s content is shitty and Kim knew it was happening.

    I don’t think he should be extradited but that is at least a decent reason.

    • thericofactor@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      “Making money with other people’s content is shitty”

      What reddit, xitter, meta and pretty every big corporation is doing right now with A.I.?

    • Good_morning@lemmynsfw.com
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      3 months ago

      Completely agree, if you’re going in search of a movie online, even if you can’t find it, you’re not guaranteed to go out and buy it full price, it’s often a matter of both convenience & price. It’s hard to compete with a free download.

        • Good_morning@lemmynsfw.com
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          3 months ago

          Can confirm, since I have almost every streaming service I rarely consider pirating at all, now I don’t pay for any but 1, so if password crackdowns or location based logins become widespread I’ll be motivated to raise the flag again