Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom faces new charges
A U.S. grand jury added more charges against file-sharing website Megaupload and its executives, and also accused them of taking copyrighted content from sites such as YouTube for its own service, according to a new indictment released last week.
The founder, Kim Dotcom, and six others employed by the site were charged with eight additional counts of copyright infringement and wire fraud. They were originally charged with five counts of conspiracy and copyright infringement.
The superseding indictment said the Megaupload site had 66.6 million registered users as of January 2012 and just under 10 percent had ever uploaded a single file, suggesting most people used the site only to download infringed material, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The indictment also accused the group of taking copyrighted material from sites such as Google’s YouTube video service for use on Megaupload websites, which have been shut down.
