U.S. Files for Extradition of MegaUpload Founder Kim Dotcom

The U.S. Federal prosecutors have filed papers in New Zealand seeking the extradition of MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom and three of his colleagues who are accused of criminal copyright violations.

New Zealand justice officials have stated that the papers were filed Friday in Auckland's North Shore District Court. The four men are charged of violating copyright by making possible millions of illegal downloads through their Web site. Also charges against Dotcom and other MegaUpload execs stem from efforts to reproduce copyrighted material from third-party Web sites like YouTube and make them available on Megavideo.com

Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, who held senior positions at MegaUpload, are the three people along with Dotcom whose extradition is currently sought.

Dotcom and colleagues were arrested in Auckland by New Zealand authorities. Dotcom was initially denied bail after his arrest on Jan 20. However, he was freed on Feb 22 following his second bail application.

According to the indictment against the company by the U.S. Justice Department, the conspiracy was led by Dotcom, a resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand and a dual citizen of Finland and Germany, who founded MegaUpload.

The indictment contend that the site did not have as many registered users as they claimed and that of the 66 million registered accounts, only 5.4 million had ever uploaded a file to the service. It stated that 90 percent of those who used the site did so to download files rather than store items in the cloud.

Meanwhile, Dotcom denied the charges and has said he would fight the extradition application by the U.S.