Kim Dotcom Says Legal Fight Has Left Him Broke

mrspoonsi writes Kim Dotcom, the founder of the seized file-sharing site Megaupload, has declared himself "broke". The entrepreneur said he had spent $10m (£6.4m) on legal costs since being arrested in New Zealand in 2012 and accused of internet piracy. Mr Dotcom had employed a local law firm to fight the US's attempt to extradite him, but his defence team stepped down a fortnight ago without explaining why. Mr Dotcom said he would now represent himself at a bail hearing on Thursday. He denies charges of racketeering, conspiring to commit copyright infringement and money laundering. He told a conference in London, via a video link, that his lawyers had resigned because he had run out of money. "The [US authorities] have certainly managed to drain my resources and dehydrate me, and without lawyers I am defenceless," he said. "They used that opportunity to try and get my bail revoked and that's what I'm facing."

Comments

Re:Justice is served!

[aaaaaaargh!]

They didn't bankrupt him; he did that.

That's splitting hairs. Without his legal team, he had been extradited by now.

But this is commercial infringement.

Highly doubtful. He offered free access to delete content, a system similar to the one that Youtube has implemented, and had an additional team of employees to deal with copyright complaints. Three different legal teams checked the business model and gave him the thumbs up.

is anyone claiming he's actually an innocent guy getting railroaded?

I find it very unlikely that he's actually guilty of criminal copyright infringement. You would think that this law is designed for people who actually infringe copyright, but apparently not in the US. If he's guilty, then thousands of file hosting companies that are still in business would be guilty as well, and the executive boards of the biggest copyright infringers on earth Google and Youtube would all have to be in maximum security prison by now.

The problem is, however, that by "guilty" you might mean "guilty according to the faulty undue process of corrupt US justice, acting on illegaly obtained evidence and on the basis of breaking the laws of other souvereign nations". Well, in that case, he might indeed be guilty, although he still will still be able to make a pretty good case. The US does in fact not even have jurisdiction over his company, they had to resort to mind-boggling legal tricks to still be able to reach him -- tricks that no souvereign nation should allow to be pulled, but apparently some of them like New Zealand and UK are nothing more than additional states of the US.

Re:Justice is served!

[AmiMoJo]

The thing is, no matter how much of a douchbag you think he is the fact that he is fighting illegal actions by the US government against a citizen of another country is enough lend your support. Sometimes you have to support scoundrels if you want to support freedom.