Megaupload and now Mega founder, Kim Dotcom reported rival file hosting providers in an attempt to get them shut down or cut off their income. Dotcom asked Paypal to stop processing payments from rival sites as, according to Dotcom, the rivals were guilty of criminal activity.
In a mail to Paypal the, then MegaUpload CEO, wrote, "Our legal team in the US is currently preparing to sue some of our competitors and expose their criminal activity. We like to give you a heads up and advise you not to work with sites that are known to pay uploaders for pirated content. They are damaging the image and the existence of the file hosting industry (see whats happening with the Protect IP act). Look at Fileserve.com, Videobb.com, Filesonic.com, Wupload.com, Uploadstation.com. These sites pay everyone (no matter if the files are pirated or not) and have NO repeat infringer policy. And they are using PAYPAL to pay infringers."
The text comes from a 191 page document filed last week in Virginia federal court. In the document the Justice Department cited emails and Skype transcripts.
The document also reveals how Dotcom tried to make a 1:1 copy of Youtube, as it states, "On or about February 11, 2007, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to ORTMANN indicating that “Kim really wants to copy Youtube one to one.”
It also how the MegaUpload management manipulated the top 100 of most popular downloads. To hide the fact that the actual popular downloads were likely copyrighted files, the list was compiled by tracking popular downloads from other large legal download sites.
The document states about this, "On or about October 25, 2009, VAN DER KOLK instructed a Mega Conspiracy employee through an e-mail, written in Dutch, how to alter the “featured” videos list on Megavideo.com and the “Top 100” list on Megaupload.com. VAN DER KOLK wrote, among other things, that the Top 100 should not list any copyrighted files, but instead should list game demos, software demos, and movie trailers. VAN DER KOLK instructed the employee to track what was currently popular on the Internet and to download material from websites such as download.com, apple.com/trailers, and gamespot.com. VAN DER KOLK further instructed the employee to create fake accounts on Megaupload.com and Megavideo.com and to upload the files to those accounts, so that it would appear that the files were uploaded by active users instead of Mega Conspiracy employees".
In the document there's also proof that the MegaUpload management was aware of large scale copyright infringement. When reading through the document this becomes very evident. It provides clear proof that MegaUpload tried to make money from copyright infringement. This paragraph clearly underlines that as the prosecutors write, "On or about November 23, 2008, DOTCOM received an e-mail from a Mega Site user entitled “video problems.” The e-mail described, “I’ve been trying to watch Dexter episodes, but… the sound doesn’t match up with the visual… I didn’t choose to use your site, you seem to dominate episodes 6 and 7 of Dexter on alluc[.org, a linking site].” DOTCOM forwarded the e-mail to ORTMANN and wrote, “… on many forums people complain that our video / sound are not in sync… We need to solve this asap!” “Dexter” is a copyrighted television series on the premium cable channel Showtime".
The document is full of evidence coming from e-mails and Skype conversations. Dotcom is sued for massive copyright infringement as the owner of the website MegaUpload.com. According to US authorities the site was used for distribution of illegal content, according to Dotcom this was mainly a side effect. Read the entire document here and make up your own mind.
