All language subtitles for Kim Dotcom Caught In the Web 2017 en

It's really like
a Hollywood script.
That's how I see it.

This whole thing
is a live movie

that's playing out for, like,
four and half years already,

and I'm the main act.

Ridiculous.

So what about
the notion of being innocent
until proven guilty?

Yeah, exactly,
where did that go?

You know?

Guilty until
we say he's guilty,

you know, which is now.

I mean, it's crazy.

As local people,
we just knew there was
a very large house.

Because the house itself
was not easily seen,

it became more noticeable

when they started building
the stone wall,

which pretty much surrounds it.

And there were
all sorts of rumors about

who was gonna move into it,

and our favorite one was
that it was Tom Cruise

who was gonna put
a Scientology center there.

We thought that would be
kind of exciting.

This person turned up
who had changed
his name to Dotcom,

and we just thought, well,
that was fascinating,

but otherwise, I mean,

it's not as if we saw him
walking along the street.

Then the cameras went up.

I don't know whether there were
listening devices on the end,

but I always wondered

whether we were being
listened to or watched.

It didn't mesh very well
with the community.

And then, there was
a little bit more digging
into the background.

And then it was,
"Oh, my God, who's just
landed in Coatesville?"

So I started looking into
who our new neighbor
was gonna be,

and I went onto
all sorts of websites.

And the more I looked into it,
the more frightened I became

of what kind of person
was gonna be coming
into our community.

Ground unit,
gates are opened.

Top story this hour.

New Zealand is at the center
of one of world's biggest
Internet piracy investigations.

Police conducted dawn raids
on behalf of the FBI.

Kim Dotcom, the founder
of massive file-sharing site

Megaupload was...

The notorious Dr. Evil
of the information highway.

Some say
he's a criminal master mind,

others, an online innovator,

but he has to be
the most wanted man online.

I was a hacker.

Hackers were wizards.

Any kind of system,

any kind of network,

you know, a hacker right away
identifies weaknesses...

...and I'm really good at that.

Kim Schmitz wasn't
the only identity
that he assumed.

He became Kimble,

styling himself
after Richard Kimble
from The Fugitive.

He claimed that
he'd hacked into the Pentagon,

that he had reduced the credit
ratings of world leaders
down to zero.

You know, there were
all these stories,

and some people
didn't believe them.

They did seem sort of
very fantastic in some ways.

They seemed sort of, you know,
the sort of Hollywood version

of what a hacker must be.

My impression was that,
you know, it was someone

who seemed to be
bragging quite a bit

for someone who's
clearly breaking the law
in certain cases.

All the other things
that he did
were about reputation

and learning how stuff worked.

The thing that
he was convicted for,

that was a very obvious
criminal enterprise.

It was a scam
using phone cards

that would then generate cash
that would be Dotcom's.

And he got caught.

The judge
rightfully ruled that,
you know,

I should get a two-year
probation sentence,

and he also said that
there was an important factor

which was
my youthful foolishness.

Not understanding enough
at my young age

you know, that
I shouldn't have done this.

But it actually
launched my career.

That arrest actually
helped him boost
his reputation.

He set up this whole business

around the idea of
protecting companies

from hackers like him,

and when you're dealing
with businesses
that really don't have

any sort of computer security
expertise internally,

that's
a really good business
to be in

because you can say anything.

He used his hacker mythos
to build his credibility

as this security guy.

I do know that his reputation
that he built up

by the things he said he did

allowed him to get
investment from people

and to build up his company.

All my life,
I've been an innovator,

and all my life,
I've been
a little bit ahead

of what everyone else
was doing.

In the data security space,

we were one of
the first companies

to create firewalls that
alert you of a hacker attack.

MegaCar.com.

When no one was thinking

about computers and cars,

I created the MegaCar,

real time video conferencing
from a car,

that was driving
on the highway
at 200 miles an hour.

You know, all these things
I thought about early on,

you know, and again
patented it and sold it.

Kim Schmitz.

He did everything
he could to exude this
new image of himself

as this
hyper successful hacker

to really turn
everything about
his personal life

into a promotion for
his professional life.

He has this weird appearance
of the big guy

with this black suit,

and then, he is just nice,

nice like a nice bear
to cuddle with.

He wrote me
an email and asked me,

"Well, I see you like
motor-sports.

Why don't you come?
We're having
a weekend in Monaco,

Formula One race weekend.
Why don't you come?

I invite you
and your girlfriend,

and let's have a party,
and I can meet you."

He likes the music
we do with the band,

and me as a character,

and I said,
"That's interesting,"
and he got me there.

He uses all
these status symbols,

cars, girls and being together
with celebrities like myself,

but he is not.
He himself doesn't
really act like that.

Everybody is having champagne.

"Hey, have champagne,"
and all the girls,

but there is no girl
on his lap,

and he doesn't drink alcohol.

And he probably feels that
it makes himself likable

when he's in this picture
'cause people like girls
and champagne and stars.

I was
a complicated child.

My mum and I
went through hard times

with my father,
who was an alcoholic.

This guy broke
my mother's bones

and hit me many times
and was just evil

when he was drinking.

He's the reason why
I've never drank any alcohol

'cause I saw firsthand
what that stuff can do to you.

After the divorce, my mum,
even though times were tough,

she tried to find ways
to get me my first computer.

Once I had my computer,

for me, school was
a waste of time.

I wanna learn
about computers.

I wanna learn
about the future.

LetsBuyIt.com is
an online marketplace,

very early version of
Amazon, if you will.

Dotcom had talked of his plans

to invest a large amount
of money into LetsBuyIt.

When he said
he was going to do that,

the share price took off.

It was ramped massively,

and then he sold his shares.

I was in Thailand
because I was on a holiday...

...and it didn't take long
for some people

that didn't like my attitude,
my lifestyle,

to make allegations that
there's something fishy here,

and then the government
started an investigation
around insider trading.

And they arrested me,

and they took me
to a Thai prison,

the worst living conditions
that I have ever
experienced in my life.

And the embassy people arrive,

and they say, "Look,
if you want to leave,

we can give you
a travel document.

You can fly back to Germany."

And of course I agreed.

The way that
German authorities recast it,

they had to go to
Thailand to drag him back.

Dotcom would have it that
he came back willingly

to face the charges.

In the end,
I agreed to a plea bargain.

I simply didn't want to
deal with it anymore.

I wanted to leave
Germany behind

and start a new life
somewhere else.

If there is any place
in the world

that is left as sort of
the edge of business,

of finance, of legality...

It's a wild west sort of town.

Hong Kong is
all about capitalism.

Companies start there daily
and disappear the next day.

It was both at
the center of the world

and on its edge.

He felt it was
really easy to restart

what he was trying
to do in Germany,
there, without much oversight.

Welcome to the Kimpire.

Using a PC to download music

is one of the hottest of
today's computer trends,

and that has
the recording companies
up in arms

and heading to court.

Members of
the entertainment industry

are fighting new websites
like Napster

which allow you
to download music

off of the Internet
free of charge.

It's a surprisingly simple idea

known as file-sharing.

Napster is providing
a service that give people

the opportunity to
steal our music.

It started
with the music industry.

They were no longer in charge

of how they
distributed their wares

because we had Napster.

If it was digitized,

then you could
copy it and send it
across the globe.

Any one person could do that.

When I wanted
something special,
a certain song,

I couldn't find it.
I couldn't buy it
in a record store,

and I couldn't order it.

I just went online
and got it from Napster

or from some
other dark corner
in the Internet.

It was a little en vogue.

It was a little radical.

Everybody did this in
this transition times

when the legal market,

legal online market,
started to establish.

In that time,
everybody did this.

Every aspect of
music has changed,

how it's consumed,
how it's disseminated,

how it's marketed.

It's this shifting climate,

and the old guard's
trying to hold on

and penalize anyone
who impedes
their revenue streams.

So they had
these crazy lawsuits

against suburban housewives

who had downloaded
illegally 20 songs,

you know, trying
to like sue them
for millions of dollars.

Well, I don't think this
is about record companies.

I think this is about
whether or not people

who create music,
and invest in music,

have a right to get paid.

The record companies
never gave a damn

about the artist anyway.

95% of them have problems
retrieving their money

from the major corporations
anyway.

Four major corporations,
four of them,

and Hilary is fighting
to protect them.

Ms. Rosen, isn't this
strictly about your profits
and your money?

Well, it's about
everybody's profits and money.

Originally the film industry
was quite naive

in believing that
they were immune

because they thought,
you know,

we've got two gigabyte,
three gigabyte files,

and if you're sharing those,
you know, on dial-up modems,

it would take
days to download.

But, of course,
in the current state,

it's trivial to download
that kind of content.

And so that industry
is threatened as well,

and the business model
of that industry

is very different from music.

You know,
when you get access to music,

you want a song
that if you like it,

you're gonna listen to it
a thousand times.

If you watch a movie,

it's not likely
you're gonna watch it
two or three times.

So they had
a stronger reason
to be anxious

that people not get access
to their movie

and to bleed
the potential revenue.

You can copy on
a digital format
10,000 copies,

and the ten thousandth copy
is as pure and pristine

as the original.

If you allow that,
you don't have copyright

to protect you
on the Internet,

we're dead.

They had no understanding.

The music industry
had been decimated.

The film industry
had the same problem.

They didn't understand
what was coming

until things had already
gotten out of hand.

As you can see, 250,

this is the Gumball speed,
ladies and gentlemen.

Gumball Rally is where
the richest car nuts
in the world

get together
to cover thousands
of miles across Europe.

Dotcom treated it
like it was a race

because he likes
to win everything.

This is the winner.

This is the winner.

I've been a hacker
in my early years,

and then I started...

You know, always
when I was there,

there were videos
made about it,

and I wanted to share them
with my friends.

And I could not because
the files were too big

to send via email.

And I was like, well,
let's create a site

where you can upload a file,

and then instead of
emailing the file,

you just email the link.

And no matter
how large the file is,

people can download it,
and problem solved.

That's how it started.

At the time Megaupload
really took off,

we were a relatively small team
of developers.

There are not many people
that I know

that I can call
a genius, but Mathias is.

He was the brains
behind the code.

He is really a genius.

Bram was kind of
a fan of Kim

because of his Gumball racing,

and I think that way they met

because he said, "You know,
I can-- I'm a coder too.

Can I do something for you?"

I was not part of
the founding members.

I met him at a club in Munich.

Kim got in touch with me
because Megaupload grew,

and there was a need for
marketing and advertising.

So because
we knew each other,
and he trusted me.

There was this boom in
remote storage locker services

that people were using
for both infringing

and non-infringing purposes

to store information in
what we now call the cloud.

I guess you could really say

that Megaupload was
among the innovators

of consumer cloud services.

Certainly the interface design
was dead simple.

As we talk about Megaupload,

we're gonna be talking
a lot about music and films,

but it's not just that.

Academic research, data sets...

This is the promise of
the Internet, right?

That across the globe
we can share access
to all of this stuff,

and build upon it
and share it,

and that's really,
really amazing.

And that's
the underlying technology

of cloud computing
that Megaupload used

that's really so exciting.

There was a high demand.

We had crazy rates of growth.

Say you have
a million visitors
on your website,

and every user
that came to our website

is potentially
advertising income.

It doubled in size
almost every month,

and we needed to
get new servers,

more bandwidth, new servers,
more bandwidth.

I was surprised.

I was so surprised
that something simple

would grow into
such proportions,

but I also immediately
understood its potential.

Now, whether Dotcom
ever envisioned
what it was gonna turn into,

I don't know,
but users did.

Once users could see

the latest Hollywood movies
on Megaupload,

the use of the site exploded.

They would Google
a movie they wanted to see

or a song they wanted to hear.

It would be
one of the top hits.

They'd click on the link,

and, oh yeah, I guess
I'm at Megaupload,

and by the way,
if you want it
to go faster, pay here.

Then they would pay there,

and get a premium account
and have it go faster.

So it actually,
it was very well designed

to attract people who
weren't even thinking

one way or the other
about legal, illegal.

They just wanted
to see the movie

and were happy
to pay somebody
for the privilege,

and a company
like Kim Dotcom's
was cashing the checks.

A girlfriend, I saw her
watching Mad Men
on her computer,

and I'm like,
"Where did you get that?"

And she's all like,
"Megaupload,"
and I'm like, "What is that?"

And she told me that
Megaupload was the in place

at the University of Kansas,

where she had just
graduated earlier,

to find free movies.

How did you hear about it?

She said
her 63-year-old professor

at the University of Kansas
turned her on to Megaupload.

And then I was like,
this is big.

They're essentially
streaming to you,

and it was easy.

If they make this
this simple to do,

this means
it could go mainstream.

I was traveling
a lot in Asia,

and I was in
the Philippines at a disco,

and I saw Mona dancing
on the dance floor.

And she immediately
caught my eye

because she is
so incredibly beautiful.

I was a bit shy,
so I sent my PA to go to Mona

and ask her if
she wants to join us.

He was just this guy
sitting alone in the corner.

So it's like, why is
no one talking to him?

I thought we really connected.

We both grew up
in a tough life,

but, yeah,
we were just friends.

I just knew that
I wanted to be with her.

Look at me.

I'm not a supermodel, right?

And now we are going
to the Tower de Eiffel.

So I have to spend
extra time and extra work

to get someone to fall for me,

but she ultimately did,

and we were really
happy together.

We went on a holiday
to New Zealand,

and we just fell in love
with the place.

Run for your lives.

Bye bye.

What's happening?

OK, we are up here
on the hill at Coatesville.

This is our house.

We found that house
in Coatesville

and we just made that
our second home.

Yeah.

Megaupload was huge,

and there were tens of
millions of dollars coming in.

At that time,
he was largely unknown
in New Zealand.

He was a reclusive,
wealthy foreigner
who was living

in the grandest house
in the land.

Now for
the biggest fireworks display

ever seen in New Zealand,

a gift from Mr. Kim Dotcom

as he hovers up here
over our beautiful harbor.

Happy New Year, Auckland.

Happy New Year.

Dotcom had a very slow entry

into New Zealand life,

but then, he spent about
a half million dollars

on that fireworks display.

That was a celebration
of getting his residency.

These thieves are now
migrating offshore,

locating themselves in places

that're beyond
the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

And so we need to come up
with a mechanism

to protect our jobs

and protect
the intellectual property

by going after those sites

or those search engines

that allow
these illegal criminal
foreign sites to exist.

Dotcom had a plan
to list Megaupload.

He wanted
to float the company,

and he reckoned it was worth
about two billion dollars.

This is next level stuff.

We wanted to launch
several new sites.

One of them was Megamovies,

which was
a Netflix competitor,

and the aim was
to license content

from the big studios.

We have Megabox.

It would give the artist
90% of the earnings.

It would give them
an online platform

where they can sell
directly to their fan base.

Because we were thinking
about how can we reinvent
this whole copyright model?

How can we make it work

for the artists
and creators directly?

Kim was definitely talking
about new business models

that he was working on
and new services
that he was working on.

And you got this idea that

like many other platforms
that started out

as being very focused on
kind of infringing uses,

a legitimate and authorized
business model

might actually come out of it.

This technology is live
and in place now, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

I will happily do
a deal with you guys,

not an issue.

Amazing, great,
I'm happy to hear that.

We have gotten a lot
of fire from everyone,

you know, in
the content industry for,

you know, Megaupload.

There are certain people
I can have conversations with

where you'll be moved
onto a different list

-as opposed to a bad list.

If it would be
from evil to neutral,

and then later from
neutral to good,

I think that would be fair.

- That, we can do that.
- OK, good.

One of the things
that I thought was,

maybe this was the sign
that Megaupload was making

that sort of shift
to a legitimate platform.

The movie industry
did not react that way.

I think they sort
of freaked out.

They don't go past this whole,
"There's infringement.

It's bad. End it."

Megaupload was
effectively a copy cat

of some pirate services that
already existed at the time,

so there was
no creative innovation
in what they did.

They just did it
better in the sense

that they bested
their pirate competitors

in terms of growing.

So the entire
business model was based

on distributing content
that Megaupload didn't own.

This guy is becoming
a multi, multi millionaire,

and dual use,
this is not people
sharing their vacation photos

and then others
paying a premium

to download them
a little faster.

This is just movie
after movie after movie.

Kim Dotcom made a lot
of money for himself.

Did he make a lot of money
to fund all of the art

that he was
distributing for free?

No way.

Also remember that like
creators have rights.

I mean, in
the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights,

which was signed by
the UN, not the MPAA,

you know, you have the right

to moral
and material interests
of your work.

That's a big deal.

You wanna give it away for
free? Give it away for free.

You wanna stream it?
Stream it.

You wanna put it on LaserDisc,

beam it into space,
show it on airplanes?

That's your choice.

But Kim was violating
the rights of a lot of people.

When someone like
Kim Dotcom put up a site,

and he collects
millions of dollars

of advertising income
off that site

to pay for his yachts,
his mansions,

and his private jets,

that's, to me, parasitical.

He is a parasite,

and he is sucking
the blood out of
the artist's corporate body.

Just one more time,
are you ready?

So he's a criminal,
and it's just that simple.

You know, he deserved,
he should be in jail.

That wasn't right.
Let's do it again.

And then the other one.

I was working
on a music site
called Megabox.

Megabox was actually
a real threat

to the music labels because
it empowered the artists,

and cut out the middlemen,

these monopolist labels
that are just
stealing money from them,

and the artists loved that.

Hey, we have our hit, man.

And they were all excited.

They wanted to be
a part of that,

and that's why they decided
to promote Megaupload

in the way they have done.

I use Megauploads, man.

I like to use Megaupload.

I like Megaupload.

I like Megaupload.

I love Megaupload.

A whole bunch of A-listers,
well-known faces

singing a Megaupload jingle,

...suggest that I might be.

I mean, that was really
sticking his fingers

up the noses
of the record companies
and Hollywood.

But it was surprising
because I'm sure

that many of the labels that
represent these celebrities

were incredibly unhappy to see

that promo because
their message was one

that does not align
very easily

with the copyright industry's
message,

that any kind of
copyright infringement
hurts them, not helps them.

Like, what is this?

Here are the artists
backing Kim Dotcom

and Megaupload at
a crucial time.

Listen, Kim Dotcom
is a PR genius.

He knows what
really makes impact.

He knows
what people wanna see.

He knows
what's gonna affect them.

The guy's a genius
when it comes to that,

and Hollywood had no idea
that he'd be able
to do this kinda thing.

That came out of nowhere.

Hey, I'm Alicia Keys,
and I use Megaupload.

Hi, I'm Naomi Campbell.

What up, doe?
Megaupload.

I am Demi Moore.

Hey, what's up?
It's Kim Kardashian,

and I love Megaupload.

These people are whores.

They're-- they're, you know,

wave a little check
in front of them.

They'll show up anywhere,

and that's what's so sad,
you know.

I mean, the music business
didn't use to be that way,

but now whether
it's brands or Kim Dotcom,

people are so anxious
to get some cash

that they'll do anything.

He seemed to them

he was rubbing their nose,

that he was living
in this huge mansion

with all these cars,
living this high life,

and to them,
he was doing that
with their money.

It was like, he had to go.

So he kinda, in a way,
he invited some of this.

He has long been viewed

as an adversary of the film
and entertainment industry
in Hollywood,

and that industry wield

enormous political power
inside the United States,

and therefore it wields
great influence

within the halls of
power of Washington.

Top lobbyist
for Hollywood told FOX

his industry is threatening
to cut off money
to the President.

Don't make
the false assumption this year

that because we did it
in the years past

we're gonna do it this year.

This industry is
watching very carefully

who's going
to stand up for them

when their job is at stake.

Chris Dodd,
the head of the Motion Picture
Association of America,

the most powerful
lobbying group
for Hollywood in America,

was very explicit
about the fact

that if you're not gonna
give us what we want,

we're not gonna give you
what you want
when it comes around time

for you to raise money
to fund your campaigns.

Now that was more explicit
than he should have been

'cause it just
sounded so grotesque,

but what he was saying
was understood
by everybody to be true.

I've heard
a lot of suspicion

about whether Hollywood
really did put pressure

on the President
to take down a site

that they believed was
pirating music and films.

And I would say,
"Yeah, absolutely."

That's what we do.
He shouldn't be
surprised by that.

That's what happens.

You get in between
America and its money,

and you're gonna have
big problems.

They've been arrested
on warrants relating

to breach of
copyright offenses in
the United States,

money laundering
and racketeering.

Within New Zealand,

we have seized an excess
of six million dollars worth

of top-end motor vehicles
and over $10 million in cash

from several New Zealand
finance companies.

More details
of Kim Dotcom's actions
during the raid have emerged.

Police say when
they arrived in
two helicopters,

Dotcom retreated into
an electronically locked
panic room.

They found him clutching
a sawed-off shotgun,

and they had to cut him
out of the room.

The firearm that was found,
sir, was illegal.

Here's a photo of it,

and it was loaded.

The FBI claims that
Kim Dotcom made $175 million

in criminal proceedings

and that Megaupload cost
half a billion dollars
in harm to copyright owners.

He was put into
the criminal category

because he was a criminal,

and he is a criminal,

and he was
a pretty significant criminal.

Just because he is not violent

doesn't mean
his conduct isn't criminal.

People go to jail for
securities fraud every day

without ever having taken
a bat to the side
of someone's head.

So the harm that
Kim Dotcom causes

really does affect
real people.

It affects those
1.9 million people
that go to work every day

trying to earn
a living in the film
and television industry.

It affects
the small businesses

that are trying to start up
new legitimate online platforms

and that are playing
by the rules.

So the conduct that
Kim Dotcom engaged in

was criminal,
and it had real victims.

- Hi, Kim.
-Hello.

Well, I'm relieved to
go home to see my family,

my three little kids
and my pregnant wife,

and I hope you understand

that that's all
I want to say right now.

How have
you been treated?

I just want to go home,
and see my family.

Gentlemen, just...
Excuse me.

What about
the extradition hearing?

You will obviously
be fighting that one?

Yes, I will be fighting that.

And in New Zealand,
Megaupload tycoon Kim Dotcom

was released on bail today
after 31 days in prison.

A hearing will be held shortly

to determine whether
the Megaupload co-accused

will be sent to
Washington to stand trial.

If found guilty,
the men could face

up to 80 years in prison.

Hi!

Yeah, but they didn't say no.

We were living
in this happy bubble, ya know?

Everything was perfect...

until the raid.

Yay...

it's happening.

Oh, I'm scared.

Oh, what's that?

Oops.

- Hello.

Number one is out, baby...

- Number two.
- ...and number two.

-Babies are super pretty.
-Super healthy?

Super good, baby,
don't worry, all good.

Today I'm a daddy again.

Two more kids, two tiny girls,

two beautiful little pirates.

That was really good
that I was able

to be outside to watch
the twins get born.

You know,
that gave me a lot of energy.

It reminded me
that I really need
to fight for them.

I knew we were innocent.

I knew these
allegations were wrong.

I actually read the indictment
on the day we got arrested,

and I had to laugh.

I said to my co-defense,

this will be over
really quick.

This is such a nonsense.

It will be so easy
to discredit

and show that they got it
all wrong, you know?

While I was remanded,

I got all these
press clippings,

and they were saying
that I was found

with a sawn-off shotgun,

you know, that they had to use
this kind of force

because I had
weapons in the house

and, you know,
the whole description
of the case,

and who I am
was just completely
unrealistic and not true.

-Speak with...
-Mm-hmm.

So I decided that I want
to set the record straight.

Of course, everybody knows

that the Internet
is being used

for legitimate
and illegitimate uses,

and I think every
online service provider

has the same challenges
that we had.

YouTube, Google, everybody
is in the same boat,

and our legal advisers
have always told us
that we are secure

and that we are protected
by the DMCA

which is a law in the U.S.

that is protecting
online service providers

of liability for
the actions of their users.

Kim's legal team would argue
that they're no different

than any other
cloud storage service.

They are not responsible
for what the users do.

They have no liability.

End of story as far
as they're concerned.

What the government alleges,
what the entertainment
industry alleges

is that, well, no,
the website was set up
to give incentives

for people to
upload valuable material,

meaning, you know,
newly released films,

newly released music,
things like that.

That's also
very important to mention.

I shouldn't ever have been
in a situation

to defend myself
against extradition

because there is
simply no basis in law

in New Zealand
to extradite me.

They have to prove
to a New Zealand court

that the treaty between
the United States

and New Zealand,
extradition treaty,
covers copyright.

And from what I've seen,

there's nothing in there
about copyright.

They're concocted,

and they're piling them on
to figure out a way

to make out a case
where none should exist.

But like a house,
you know, like dominoes,

if there is no criminal
copyright infringement,

all the others will fall.

The whole
Dotcom Megaupload process

turned out to be

far more
than New Zealand
ever bargained for.

Anything that
we could get wrong,
we got wrong.

The New Zealand authorities
managed to pretty much
screw up every step

of the process along the way.

The search warrant that was
used to execute the raid,

it has to be directed towards

whatever the alleged
criminal enterprise is.

This document didn't do that.

It was
an incredibly vague document.

The authorities in New Zealand
cloned Dotcom's laptops,

which had been seized
during the raid.

The court had
effectively said

this evidence remains
in New Zealand.

The FBI took the clones

and sent them back
to the United States.

It's extraordinary.

Dotcom's rights, the process
of law had been thwarted,

and there needed to be
some sort of redress for that.

The Internet millionaire
has been back in court

for a three-day hearing.

Police were quizzed about
what level of threat he posed

and whether the elite
special tactics group

was needed to execute
the search warrants
in January.

The police
are not every day

going into domestic houses

armed to the teeth
with automatic weapons,

bashing down doors,

quartering the household
in a paramilitary fashion,

shouting orders
at one another.

That's not ordinary
police practice
in New Zealand, is it?

Or have I missed something?

I think
you've missed something.

If the risk assessment is
that there are firearms
in the property,

the police will not execute
that search warrant

without armed police.

When one reads
the indictment of Megaupload,

I notice that there
were references

to child pornography
and terrorism.

They do not have
any relevance

to a claim
of copyright infringement,

but that is
part of the effort

to paint the defendants
as extremely dangerous

and ugly and nasty persons.

And that, Your Honors,
one that I referred to.

They had a message.

The guy is dangerous.

He has weapons,

and so everybody thought
this Kim Dotcom guy

is not just into piracy.

They gave the impression that
he was much more dangerous

and there were other things
that he might be into,

and of course, that
turned out to be a lie.

One was taken at a resort

called Cape Kidnappers
in Napier,

and I was there
with my family for holiday,

and we had an afternoon
where we had clay shooting,

and the other event
was a similar occasion

in Ireland over 10 years ago.

I was almost
seven months pregnant.

I was having contractions,
but that was not my focus.

I just thought to myself,

"Oh, my God, the kids,"

'cause I could see
the guys with their weapons,

with their guns.

How silly is that?

So I was just like,
"Can you please
let me go to my kids?"

They're like, "No,
you just have to stand there.

You have to stand there."

I'm like, "I need
to go to my kids.

I need to see my kids.

Those are my kids in there."

It's 'cause
I was just worried
that, you know,

they're gonna come in
their room with their guns.

So you were relying upon

the intelligence information

which the FBI
were providing to you?

-Is that right?
-Yes.

The FBI and
the Department of Justice

were involved from
the very outset,

and that's perhaps
not surprising.

What's surprising
is how keen

the New Zealand authorities were

just to adopt
what we assume to be

the recommendations
from the FBI.

When they went in
fast and hard,

it was because the police were
under the impression

that there was
this Doomsday device

that was in the mansion
somewhere that would,

if activated, destroy evidence

of wrongdoing
anywhere in the world.

What destruction devices?

Well, the laptop
and the iPhone

or the PDA, whatever
it was that was found.

They were not
destruction devices, were they?

What do you expect?
A box with a red button on it?

The mission was to arrest me

as quickly as possible

so that I could not use
any Doomsday device.

In actuality,
it took them 15 minutes

to find me in my own house.

There's never been
any such device,
and it was never found.

It was all bullshit.

I think that
the rationale is clear.

It was meant to send
a message around the world.

Don't mess
with the United States
on copyright issues.

The only other raid
that I can think of

that sounds similar
was the raid on
Osama Bin Laden,

and these are
vastly different levels
of importance.

You know, it sort of
looked like

you were taking down
a South American dictator.

I thought it was bizarre,

and I thought it was
also quite symptomatic

of how we've gotten into
such an extreme position

around some of these issues.

Things that I might
not even agree with

that Megaupload was doing,

I think warrant
proper address in court
and so forth.

It doesn't mean
you need to send helicopters

and masses of teams
with machine guns and so on.

That's it.

You just made history, man.

It's fucking huge, man!

Later.

OK, bye.

Oh man, this is good shit.

They fucked up!

They fucked up.

They fucked up.

They fucked up.

They fucked up.
They fucked up.

First tonight,
a ruling in the past hour

on the Kim Dotcom case

as he fights FBI attempts
to extradite him
to the United States.

A high court judge says
search warrants

for the Internet entrepreneur's
Auckland mansion were illegal.

Justice Helen Winkleman
has decided

the warrants used
were invalid.

New Zealand police
seized bank accounts

on behalf of the FBI

and took away property
worth millions.

Now they may have
to give it all back.

It's a damning judgment,
illegal,

unlawful, invalid.

Justice Winkleman
doesn't hold back.

Embarrassed about this?
I am, a wee bit.

Ah, absolutely.

That we appear
to almost be puppets
of the FBI.

There was a feeling that
the machinery of state

had been exercised
against Dotcom

in a way that was
unjust or unfair.

Suddenly, New Zealanders saw

that there was
two sides to the story...

I love you, Com!

...and maybe this was
the U.S. state bullying someone

that was a spanner
in the works of
Hollywood productions.

Suddenly, people wanted to
fight against injustice.

Suddenly, he became
a cause celeb.

The war for
the Internet has begun.

Hollywood is
in control of politics.

There is huge contradictions
in Kim Dotcom.

Even in the face of these
huge legal battles he faces,

he seems to have
a huge sense of humor

and likes to taunt
the U.S. government.

What about free speech,

Say hello to my little friend.

I think that playful attitude
is one reason

that a lot of people
who might otherwise be

really skeptical
of what he's done,

knowing that, you know,
the primary driving force

behind many of these companies
is to make money,

nevertheless, kind of,
can appreciate him.

It's quite interesting
that a lobby group

around entertainment content

can get the White House
to move against

an Internet nerd
with military force.

I mean, think about
that for a moment.

Isn't that--
It's funny.

And none of it
will change anything.

None of what they have done
has changed anything

to alter the way
the Internet works

or the levels of piracy.

When Megaupload shut down,

in the 18 weeks
following that shutdown,

sales through
legitimate outlets
went up six to 10%,

and that's just one site.

It was one
of the major sites
at the time,

but that's just one site,

and you saw an uptake of
use of legitimate sites

by an amount of six to 10%.

So that's a really
significant amount

of impact on
the legitimate market.

You can't really trust
the industry numbers

on that problem,

and you certainly can't trust

the industry's analysis
and understanding

of the operation
of the Internet.

One of the strongest
drivers for piracy

is when people are hearing
all this buzz

about something that
really is fantastic,

but they can't get it legally
in their country,

and then they turn illegally
to download it.

Well, we may disapprove
of that behavior,

but we can't stop
that behavior,

and there's actually
a very simple solution

that doesn't involve
sending out S.W.A.T. teams.

It involves,
"Hey, change
your business policy."

Everything that you are
selling in one country,

sell it in every country,

and if you don't,
don't be surprised if
people are pirating it.

I'm an avid gamer.

I play Modern Warfare on Xbox,

and I noticed that
my speed, my Internet speed,

went down by about
20, 30 milliseconds.

And a normal
Internet user

would never ever
identify that,

but me being
a competitive gamer,
I noticed it,

and only after the raid did
I figure out what happened.

They rerouted all my traffic

in a way that
they could capture all my data

that went through
my connection.

During
the high court hearings,

Grant Wormed
was being cross examined,

and he was being asked
about his notebook,

and he looked
extremely awkward.

On the 14th of December, 2011,

was there a further meeting

that you attended
to plan this operation

where there was
a range of people there?

Someone from
the Justice Department, was it?

Yes.

And was there
another group of people

represented as well
at the meeting?

Yes, there was.

What field of activity
were they involved with?

They worked for
the government.

Right.

Are you not able to
tell us who they were?

I'd rather not.

Reason?

Just because of the nature
of the organization.

It was clear that something

had gone horribly,
horribly awry.

The intelligence agencies
had somehow become involved

in the Megaupload case.

The GCSB, the Government
Communication Security Bureau,

New Zealand's equivalent to
the National Security Agency,

was spying on Dotcom.

It's also a part of
the what's called

the Five Eyes arrangement.

The five eyes between them
spy on the world.

The power that they have
is immense.

Once Kim Dotcom
was in New Zealand,

the U.S. began exploiting
the relationship that they had

with the GCSB
and the New Zealand Government

to ensure that
getting Kim Dotcom

became one of
their principal priorities

to the point
where they engaged

in illegal surveillance
to do so.

The GCSB is controlled by
quite specific legislation

that says
you're not allowed to spy

on New Zealand residents
or citizens.

There's something
I'd really like to point out
that is important for me.

When they tapped
into my iPhone.

Because if that
happens to you,

it alters the way
you think completely.

You realize that
it wasn't just
my emails that they read.

They were there when
I was private with my wife.

They were right there.

They have no business
doing that, to anybody, at all.

I find that more than
a little bit disturbing.

Is that a way
the government
is supposed to act

with communications monitoring?

Are you supposed to be
turning the antennas

that are meant to protect
your country from
outside threats

back on yourself
for the prosecution

of what I'm not even sure
in New Zealand

is necessarily a criminal act?

Tonight,
the Kim Dotcom affair

is leaving
John Key's government
increasingly red-faced.

The boss of
the Intelligence Bureau,
Prime Minister John Key,

has ordered a probe
into illegal bugging
of the Internet millionaire.

Of course, I apologize
to Mr. Dotcom.

I apologize to New Zealanders

because every New Zealander
that sits within

the category of
holding a permanent residency

or a New Zealand citizen
is entitled
to be protected from the law.

This is really a matter of
mistake and human error,

not one of a great conspiracy.

Shutting down the Internet.

Truth...

integrity...

knowledge...

independence.

This is a crime scene,
an illegal gathering.

-You are all being detained.

Nobody move.

The four Megaupload accused
did a remarkable thing

in the year after
they were arrested.

They built
a business called Mega.

It is
the launch of Mega.

-You are all upgraded.

Dotcom says that
he was motivated

by a desire to create
an encrypted cloud storage site

so that nobody could be spied on

in the way that
he had been spied on.

The U.S. government
is investing billions

into massive
spy-clouds

to capture all your data
and communication.

By using Mega,
you say no to governments

that want to spy on you.

Lord knows what's on there.

It could be copyrighted files.

It could be ISIS
planning documents.
It could be child porn.

It could be
whatever it might be.

They've built it so that
nobody can see inside.

That, by the way,
is also what's going
to beat the surveillance state.

I will be one person
that will be remembered

as somebody who has fought
mass surveillance

with technology that gives you
your freedom back.

The innermost workings
of our top spy agency

have been exposed
in a damning report.

Police have found
the GCSB breaks a law

by spying on Kim Dotcom
and 85 other New Zealanders.

Prime Minister Key's
solution to the debacle

is to change the law,
giving more power

to our top intelligence agency.

If passed, the law
will permit the GCSB

to now spy on
all New Zealand citizens.

Kill the bill.

Kill the bill...

Thank you all
for coming today.

The U.S. government is
the most power-hungry
government out there,

and GCSB is one of the puppets

on the strings of
the U.S. government,

and the biggest puppet
of them all is John Key,

your Prime Minister...

...and I will never
settle my case.

I will fight until
we know the truth,

until we know
every single detail.

There were fireworks
today at Parliament

as the Prime Minister John Key
went head to head
with Kim Dotcom.

The Internet tycoon was
making a public submission

on the proposed changes
to the country's spy laws.

You feel that the--
or do you know or believe

that the Prime Minister
was aware

of what you were doing
before the raid took place?

He knew about me
before the raid.

I know about that.

I didn't, no.

You know I know.

I know you don't know.

I know you don't know,
actually, but that's fine.

Why are you turning red,
Prime Minister?

I'm not.
Why are you sweating?

- It's hot.
-Oh, OK.

-I have a scarf.

The question was if
the Prime Minister
knew about me before the raid,

and answer to that is yes.

They gave me residency
in New Zealand

for the purpose
of extradition.

Warner Brothers was
already in talks

with
the New Zealand government

to shoot
the Hobbit films here,

and we're talking about
you know, triple digit
million dollar budgets,

lots of opportunity
for New Zealand.

So the Prime Minister
has seen this as
a double strike opportunity.

Number one, we can make
these Hollywood studios happy

so they will shoot
more movies here,

and on top of that,

we can please the White House,

because on the highest levels,
they wanted me shut down.

Certainly,
there's a lot of evidence

that suggests that that
conspiracy theory is true.

He was allowed to stay
in the country

despite having a criminal past

which would
normally preclude him
from getting residency.

This occurred at the same time

that the New Zealand
Prime Minister John Key

was meeting with
Hollywood officials.

Can I go through the list
of people we believe

-knew about Kim Dotcom?
-Yeah, sure.

-Simon Power
and some officials.
-Yep.

Jonathan Coleman
and some officials,

the Solicitor General's office,

Crown Law,
New Zealand Police,
the Attorney General,

the Organized and Financial
Crime Agency of New Zealand,

Nigel Bickle
and an unknown number
of people under him

at Immigration New Zealand,
your electorate office,

Hillary Clinton,
the U.S. Department of Justice,

the FBI,
the U.S. Attorney General's
office,

senior members of
the U.S. police force,
but not you.

Correct. I mean, look,
I hate to tell you
the bad news.

There's no great conspiracy.

The facts of life
are that Dotcom

is someone the United States
thinks had broken the law.

He's somebody that
they're trying

to extradite to
the United States.

That's where
it starts and finishes.

Kim Dotcom has failed
in a last ditch attempt

to have the 2012 raid

on his Coatesville mansion
ruled invalid.

The Supreme Court's
found the search warrants
were legal.

The police
won't be charging anyone

at the GCSB
in relation to a complaint

about spying on Kim Dotcom.

Every time we win,
they appeal.

It's a default.

We win. They appeal.

And, you know, every time
they appeal, they win.

It's all very political.

Hello, good morning.

Thank you all for coming.

Today is a big day.

We're launching
the Internet Party.

I couldn't believe it.

I said to Dotcom,
"Are you really gonna
do it, then?

Are you gonna go
into politics?"

And he said, "Yeah."

And I thought,
"God, you've lost it.

That's completely mad."

I couldn't care less
about politics.
Are you kidding me?

Why would I get involved,
you know?

And then I found out
all these things.

Firsthand, being abused,

being subject
to the abuse of power.

Yeah, of course.
I wanted to replace
the government.

Why else would
I do it, you know?

For Mathias Ortmann,
Bram van der Kolk,

Finn Batato, I think
that Dotcom's involvement

in politics was a sideshow
and a distraction.

They struggled to see
how it was going to stop

an extradition process
that was under way,

how it was going
to change the charges

that they might face
in the United States.

We are a part of
this Five Eyes
global spy network.

Thank you, guys.

Kim is always
the super confident,

and I'm always
the one worrying.

But still, I'm a woman.
I would worry, of course.

That's my thing.
I'm a worry wart.

You're still
kinda, like, left hanging.

Like, I don't even know
what's gonna happen
six months from now.

Like, Kim's hearing
is still going on.

I just don't know.

I think the whole stress
really got to me,

and, you know, the raid,
of course, was part of it.

We were really happy
before, you know. Yeah.

Mona had great difficulty
dealing with the raid.

She struggled with it,

and it affected
our relationship.

That's probably
the most regrettable outcome

of this whole case against me,

that our relationship
fell apart.

She was the love of my life.

It became apparent
as the election year of 2014

was rolling on
that the Internet party
was not going to succeed,

so Dotcom started
to look around for alliances.

The party that was willing
to work with him

was the Mana party,

which had a more
left wing and activist base.

Kim Dotcom
has told One News

he's now forked out
a whopping $4 million

for the deal
with the Mana party.

Kim Dotcom has
a particular legal interest

in not being sent back
to justice elsewhere.

Everybody knows
that Kim Dotcom

is putting money behind
the political party

to try and stop himself
from being extradited.

Is Kim Dotcom
that big fellow?

It was important
for the Mana party

to be able to introduce
its new political partner

to its constituency.

Town by town...

...marae by marae,

they would go down the country.

Everyone was quite surprised
at how successful they were.

People took them seriously
and wondered whether
they would play

an important part
in a new government.

And the media reported
everything they did.

I'm not sure that
Internet Mana handled
that scrutiny very well.

You work in news.

You puffed-up little

You're a thief!

You're a thief, John Key.

The Internet Mana road show
had aspects

that appeared to be targeting
John Key personally.

Are you ready
for a revolution?

Are you ready
to extradite John Key?

Fuck John Key.

Fuck John Key.

Fuck John Key.

Attacks on John Key
have hit new heights
this campaign...

...this effigy burning
the latest online outrage.

Fuck John Key.

It was probably
the nastiest election

that New Zealand
has seen if not for many,
many decades, then forever.

Fuck John Key!

Kim Dotcom
has promised to drop
a number of bombshells

that could topple
the Prime Minister John Key

at an upcoming event
billed "The Moment of Truth."

The day that
the Moment of Truth
was to be held,

I'd received an email

which purported to show

that everything
Dotcom had said
about the conspiracy was true,

that New Zealand
served him up on a plate.

So I rang Dotcom,
and I said,

"Is this what
you're gonna be pulling out
at the Moment of Truth tonight?"

And he said, "Yes, it is."

So what kind
of impact could there be
from all this tonight?

Well, it is-- these are
extraordinary revelations

to be laid out
five days before a campaign.

John Key is fighting really
for his political life.

Remember, he has said
he would resign

if there was any evidence
to show mass surveillance,

and of course we also have
this email on
the Hollywood links.

Come on,
give him a kiss, ladies.

The Moment of Truth
for John Key

would've been
a high risk scenario

because the two things
that Dotcom
had promised to produce

were things that
he said he was gonna resign

if they turned out
to be the case.

Tonight,
we welcome the world

and to extend
the welcome of Aotearoa

to Glenn Greenwald...

Julian Assange.

Welcome, Edward Snowden.

Hello, New Zealand.

The U.S. has this war for
control of the Internet,

and it is a war.

They don't feel
that there should be
an organization like Wikileaks.

They believe that
the spying that they do
should be kept secret.

They believe that
when it comes to copyright,

the approach that they have

should radiate out
across the world.

What we saw there
in that town hall,

that was the resistance.

You've got this network
of sensors around the world,

so I can see everything.

I can see what book
you looked at at Amazon.com.

I can see who you talk to.

I can see who
your friends on Facebook are.

I can see
the text messages you sent.

I can read
the emails you wrote,
and I can set up things

...exactly the kind of
mass surveillance

that Prime Minister Key
not only vehemently denied
was being done,

but which he promised
he would resign

if it were determined
his government
were actually engaged with.

Further, intelligence agencies

by definition
are designed to operate

outside the law,

and so they cannot be trusted.

No matter what Assange
or Snowden were gonna say,

Dotcom was still
the emperor with new clothes.

He hadn't produced the thing
that he had pledged
that he would,

that he had been talking about
for ever so long...

and that was
a real problem for Dotcom

and for pretty much anybody

that had backed him up
until that point.

What people have been
waiting for tonight

is when Kim Dotcom
came to the parliament

and said that he would prove
that John Key was a liar,

-tonight, we're, excuse me--
- Which he did.

Which I did, absolutely--

No, about knowing
about you before the raid.

And let me
just reply to this, OK?

I think, and I want to address
all media here tonight.

You have an obligation

after what you have
learned tonight

to take the information
that you were told here

by Glenn Greenwald
and Edward Snowden

to the Prime Minister
and this government

and hold them accountable.

We have focused on
the much bigger lie,

which is not about my case,

which is about
every single New Zealander

who is subjected
to mass surveillance.

That is the story that
you should focus on.

Get your priorities right.

We will. We will--

I hope you will,

because in the past, Patrick,

you have let
New Zealanders down.

I don't understand
how you let the Prime Minister

get away time and time again

with his lies and his spin.

You need to do your job,

and everyone here
needs to do their job.

I'm doing
my job by asking you.

Kim Dotcom, what's gone wrong?
Kim Dotcom, what's gone wrong?

Why couldn't you front
the evidence tonight?

-What's gone wrong?
-I think that's it.

Thank you,
thank you very much.

That email, I know
it comes from hacker circles.

You know about
the famous Sony hack.

The same people who were
responsible for that

were responsible
for this hack.

I was assured that that
email would contain headers,

which is what allows you
to identify all the details.

You know,
what mail server was used,

the date stamps that
would have allowed anyone

to verify the contents,

but unfortunately
the email was not leaked

with that information, so it
became useless for me. Yeah.

And I regret that
I could not use it
in the event.

...and welcome to Decision '14.

The campaign is over.

The voting is over,
and the counting has begun.

Now, politics is
very serious business.

This has been a fairly serious,

and at times thoroughly
unpleasant, campaign.

Now will be hoping that
they've got something
to celebrate tonight.

Right at the start,

there was quite a swelling
of support for Dotcom

because they saw him
as someone
that had been the victim

of the big Goliaths
of the U.S., FBI,

the New Zealand Police,
but suddenly he was seen

as a more aggressive player,

and it was John Key
that was the underdog.

The Internet Mana party
is in trouble.

Oh, my goodness,
in the last 20 minutes,

it's all completely
changed out here.

This is phenomenal.
What we are seeing here is
the Internet Mana alliance

is not in Parliament,

and Kim Dotcom's
millions and millions
of dollars goes down the drain.

Good evening, everybody.

We lost tonight because of me.

No. No! No.

I take-- I have to say this.

I have to say it.
I am sorry.

It's how
the media portrayed you!

I'm-- I'm really sorry
I have to say this.

I have to say this.

I take full responsibility

for this loss tonight

because the brand--
the brand Kim Dotcom
was poison

for what we were
trying to achieve,

and I did not see that before,

and it only became apparent
to me in the last
couple of weeks.

So to all of you
who have worked so hard,

I say, thank you very much.

Three more years.

The day after the election,

the Solicitor General
of New Zealand

has approached
my lawyers and asking

if I was willing
to leave New Zealand,

the case would be resolved.

There wouldn't have
to be an extradition,

and this whole thing
could go away.

You don't do a raid like this

and destroy a man's family
and his business

and cause so much pain

and get away with it
with some piece of paper

that says, "Yeah,
I've done something wrong,

but now I am free.
Thank you very much."

Well, fuck them.

After four
and a half years of delays,

the extradition hearing

against Kim Dotcom
and the Megaupload co-accused

starts in Auckland,
New Zealand today.

The Judge will determine
whether the four men
will be free

to remain in New Zealand

or whether
they will be sent to the U.S.,

where they could face
decades in prison.

This is cited as
the largest copyright case

that our world has ever seen.

We still think we should win,
and we are hopeful that we will.

We are.

Are you worried about
what the decision might be?

Please don't fall, OK?
Be careful there.

I am very confident
in my legal team.

All our submissions
are excellent.

Any unbiased legal mind
is going to see

what has happened here.

The case is really important

because it raises
important legal issues

in relation to
the extradition process,

but first, they've got
to show that the conduct
they complain of

is, in fact, a crime.

We say, look, what you allege
on the facts is not a crime.

And Your Honor will see
that there is
a specific piece of legislation

called the Copyright Act,

and it provides protection
for Internet Service Providers.

Simply providing
that technology

to its users
does not expose a company

to civil
or criminal liability.

They seem very confident.

They always point
to the same things.

There's nothing in
New Zealand-U.S. treaty
that covers copyright,

and they think that
they're gonna win.

OK. Miss Gordon.

The dishonesty at the core
of Megaupload's operations

may be expressed in
straightforward terms.

The evidence boils down
to a simple scheme of fraud,

not a passive dumb pipe
service provider,

but a massive hard drive
of infringing material.

Christine Gordon represents
the United States of America.

She has to be, I'm sure,
tutored by the DOJ,

and the United States
has gotten

every ounce of
effort out of her.

We have some good glimpses
of how the respondents

thought and acted
behind the scenes.

We have some highly revealing
communications between them.

As Mr. Ortmann
privately put it,

copyright owners would find,

and these are his words
that now follow.

"We are not the dumb pipe
we claim to be."

Bram van der Kolk
marveled at the position
they had attained,

and these are his words:

"If copyright holders
would really know
how big our business is,

they would surely try
to do something against it.

They have no idea that
we are making millions

in profit each month."

Ortmann told van der Kolk,

and these are
Mr. Ortmann's words:

"We did some things right.

We allowed fraud
for a long time,
fueling our growth."

I was startled.

I mean,
the whole court shuts up.

Everybody stops
because they're startling.

On or about
August 16, 2010, via Skype,

Dotcom told Ortmann in
German, Mr. Dotcom's words:

"At some point,
a judge will be convinced
about how evil we are,

and then we're in trouble."

Objectively translated,
it should read,

"Because at some stage,

a judge will be talked into
how bad we allegedly are,

and then it will be a mess."

The United States had
the ability to select

what evidence
it wanted to present,

and we sat
and cherry-picked it.

It was very selective and biased

about the evidence it picked
and placed before our court,

and a lot of
the conversations were
also in a foreign language.

They were in German,

and as a result,
the United States
relied on translations

which we were able
to show were incorrect
and, in fact, misleading.

Your Honor should also
have received this morning

a bundle that looks like this.

Part of section 101
is set out
in the submissions at page 65.

It's the 21 October
red bundle, sir.

And you need to understand
that this judge was spammed

with thousands of
pages of submissions

by the U.S. government.

They basically
drowned him in material,

and I knew
he didn't understand
anything about the case.

He had no clue about
the Internet, about copyright.

At one point in one hearing,

he asked if Mega
was cow storage?

Not cloud storage,
cow storage.

It was
a pretty frustrating hearing.

We had prepared
over many hours,

and we had committed
significant human
and financial resources

into mounting
what we thought was

a very credible defense
to extradition,

and most of our arguments
were marginalized

or not even considered
by the court.

The overwhelming
preponderance of evidence

produced by the applicant

in the Record of Case
and its supplements

establishes a prima facie case

to answer for all respondents
on each of the counts.

The decision has found
that all four respondents

are all eligible
for extradition.

Therefore, the sentence...

Time has passed by Megaupload.

There's always gonna be people
who wanna pirate,

and there's always gonna be
these services,

but are they
gonna be mainstream?

I would argue no.

Piracy is in decline.

But, they told us
all along, the tech side said,

"Hey, if you make it easy

to get our hands on
at a cheap price,

it's easily accessible,

there's not gonna be
any piracy,"
and that's what they did.

They've gotten the message.

What good is it
to throw him in jail now?

Find out what the guy knows.

Make a partnership with him.

You got his money,

and I'd say
the smart move is, right,
like the godfather.

Keep your friends close
and your enemies closer.

They should be doing that.

While we have
perfectly good reason

to want to prevent
piracy of content

and allow artists
and the companies
that support them

that make a profit
off of what they do,

the mechanisms
that we're using

to try
and enforce these things

are also mechanisms
for censorship

and for oppression of
freedom of thought,

and it's a slippery slope.

That's a dangerous thing.

It's not about
what's right any more.

It's about winning
at all cost.

They wanna drag me down.

To win, that's all
that matters to them,

but they picked the wrong guy

because
you can't drag me down,

and I will win.