The New Zealand Court of Appeal has upheld a decision from a lower court in that country that found internet icon Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the United States to face a variety of intellectual property charges.
The decision upheld a 2015 ruling that said the founder and public face of Megaupload.com, alleged to have operated a website that allowed users to illegally download a host of protected multimedia content, including songs, TV shows and movies.
“The Court of Appeal said the United States had disclosed “a clear prima facie case that the appellants conspired to, and did, breach copyright willfully and on a large scale, for their commercial gain,” Reuters reported.
Dotcom took to Twitter where he said, “A judgement in complete denial of the legislative history and intention of the Copyright Act. Therefore it has the value of toilet paper. We will now appeal to the Supreme Court.”
The ruling does not mean Dotcom will be heading to the U.S. soon. He intends to appeal this decision to the New Zealand Supreme Court.
Dotcom was first charged in the United States, along with several co-defendants from his firm Megaupload, for intellectual property infringement and is now listed in five cases in the Virginia Eastern District Court, including one with Microhits Inc. and Twentieth Century Fox. The German-born, New Zealand citizen was accused of costing the entertainment industry $500 million owing to user-uploaded content – including movies and music – available on the site.
Former Megaupload employee Andrus Nomm of Estonia pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges in 2015.
