Kim Dotcom, the founder of the popular file-sharing platform Megaupload, lost his long and drawn out extradition battle on Thursday after his appeal was shut down by a New Zealand court. Dotcom now faces extradition to the US on piracy charges.
Among the charges filed by the US government against the German national include racketeering, fraud, and money laundering, carrying up to a 20-year jail sentence.
This is a major setback for Dotcom, whose court case has dragged on for six years already, starting with an FBI-led raid of his Auckland mansion in 2012.
The three-judge panel in New Zealand ruled that the US government showed ample evidence that Dotcom “conspired to, and did, breach copyright willfully and on a massive scale for commercial gain”.
US officials allege that Megaupload and Dotcom made more than $175 million in profits and cost copyright owners over $500 million.
Dotcom denies any wrongdoing, arguing that his popular website merely served as a platform for users to upload files and share them with other users. He claims to have never encouraged the uploading of copyrighted material.
Before being shut down in 2012, the site had more than 50 million daily users.
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