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Megaupload Pair Face 10 Years in Prison on New Organized Crime ChargesAndy Maxwell, 19 May 12:27 PM Eary 2022, after more than a decade of legal unc

Megaupload Pair Face 10 Years in Prison on New Organized Crime Charges Andy Maxwell, 19 May 12:27 PM Eary 2022, after more than a decade of legal uncertainty following the Megaupload raids in 2012, Kim Dotcom and co-defendants Mattias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk were still fighting to prevent their extradition to the United States. With copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering charges looming overseas, earlier this month Ortmann and van der Kolk admitted that the extradition case had "taken a heavy toll" on their lives. So, in the interests of moving on, a deal had been struck with the authorities. Rather than risk a loss in their extradition battle and the prospect of standing before a US criminal court far from home, the former Megaupload executives reached an agreement with the New Zealand Government and the United States to be charged in New Zealand for "similar offenses". Dotcom still faces extradition. Court Appearance Delayed, Case Transferred to High Court The two men were due to appear at the Auckland District Court today but the case was transferred to the High Court at Auckland instead. The first hearing there is scheduled for June, at which time the detailed charges should become public knowledge. In the meantime, local journalist David Fisher reports that charge sheets filed with the District Court offer an early insight into what Ortmann and van der Kolk have agreed to face, in order to put their ten-year ordeal behind them. Organized Crime-Related Charges According to the documents, 50-year-old Ortmann and 39-year-old van der Kolk will stand accused of conspiring as part of an "organized criminal group" to unlawfully profit from copyright-infringing material. That "criminal group" will include Kim Dotcom but as things stand, he is not being charged in New Zealand. The alleged offenses are said to have begun on January 1, 2005, several months earlier than the September 2005 date listed in the United States's 2012 superseding indictment (pdf). Their alleged criminality is said to have ended on January 20, 2012, a date that marks the shutdown of Megaupload and the arrest of the men. Pair Could Face Up To 10 Years in Prison The detailed charges have not yet been made public but the phrase "organized criminal group" is referenced in Section 98A of the Crimes Act 1961. Such a group consists of three or more people with a shared objective or objectives. Since Ortmann and van der Kolk are not accused of any type of violence, the following objective(s) appear to apply: (a) obtaining material benefits from the commission of offenses that are punishable by imprisonment for a term of 4 years or more; or (b) obtaining material benefits from conduct outside New Zealand that, if it occurred in New Zealand, would constitute the commission of offences that are punishable by imprisonment for a term of 4 years or more David Fisher reports that there are four charges for both of the men, each punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison. Participation in an "organized criminal group", consisting of three or more people with shared objectives, is an offense punishable by a prison term "not exceeding 10 years" in New Zealand, so that may well tie in. When an offender is convicted of multiple similar and connected offenses in New Zealand, guidance in the Sentencing Act indicates that sentences are usually served concurrently. In any event, any sentences handed down locally are likely to be preferable to those available in the United States. Defendants' Plea Still Not Officially Confirmed Kim Dotcom believes that his former colleagues will "admit liability" to put their ordeal behind them but that has not been confirmed publicly. However, the existence of an agreement with the authorities does strongly suggest that, especially since contested cases under Section 98A have a very low conviction rate. According to a 2015 paper published by the Faculty of Law at Victoria University of Wellington (pdf), since it was conceived in 1998, an average of just 21% of offenders charged under Section 98A were actually convicted. Kim Dotcom is yet to comment on today's developments but his attacks on President Biden, who he directly blames for Megaupload's demise, continue. In response to a two-option Twitter poll this week, asking who people would prefer to be President of the United States, Dotcom's followers overwhelmingly chose Vladimir Putin (75%) with Biden trailing behind with just a quarter of the votes. While veteran politician Biden has bigger issues on his desk right now, including the state of the economy, Dotcom says he wants to undermine that too, at least according to a post on his new Telegram channel. "If we can bring enough people together I have a plan how to do this," he said. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. PrimeStreams IPTV Targeted in Multi-Million Dollar Piracy Lawsuit Andy Maxwell, 18 May 08:41 PM Most suppliers, sellers and resellers in the pirate IPTV space face an interesting conundrum. On one hand, being unsuccessful dramatically reduces the odds of legal trouble but isn't conducive to getting rich. On the other, a good product coupled with brand awareness can lead to commercial success, at least until that profile attracts the wrong type of attention. As one of the most recognizable IPTV brands around, PrimeStreams appears to fall into the latter category. In late 2019, the IPTV provider found itself being extorted by a hacker who claimed to have obtained the details of around 121,000 of its subscribers. To PrimeStreams' credit, customers were immediately informed and somehow a total disaster scenario was avoided. Now, however, PrimeStreams' operators have new adversaries to deal with, ones that will be demanding a lot more than 'just' $70K in bitcoin. PrimeStreams Sued in the United States In a lawsuit filed in a Kentucky court this month, US broadcaster DISH Network and streaming platform Sling TV accuse PrimeStreams of infringing their rights on a grand scale via their internet 'rebroadcasting' operation. The complaint names Daniel Scroggins, Steven Daugherty, and corporate entity Dscroggs Investments LLC as defendants, citing large-scale breaches of the Federal Communications Act and the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. "Defendants provide an illicit streaming service known as PrimeStreams that allows users to access, without authorization, Plaintiffs' internet communications of television programming that were acquired by circumventing security measures implemented by Plaintiffs," the complaint reads. DISH and Sling claim that Scroggins, a resident of Burlington, Kentucky, and Daugherty, a resident of Havana, Illinois, are the co-owners of PrimeStreams. It's alleged that they used Dscroggs Investments LLC to process payments related to the PrimeStreams IPTV service. The PrimeStreams Operation The plaintiffs allege that Scroggins registered several PrimeStreams domains including primestreams.tv, primestreamstv.com, and primehosting.one. The service was marketed and sold to users via these domains and through social media platforms. "PrimeStreams was advertised as a subscription-based streaming service providing over 3,000 channels, movies on demand, pay-per-view events, and sports programming, among other content, all for a low monthly fee," the plaintiffs note, adding that at least some of the content offered had been illegally obtained from their subscription services. "The Programming retransmitted on the PrimeStreams service was received from Plaintiffs' internet communications. Identifiers unique to Plaintiffs' internet communications were detected when viewing the Programming on the PrimeStreams service." Circumventing DRM to Obtain Content DISH and Sling say their internet transmissions are secured using Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies including Google's Widevine DRM, Apple's FairPlay DRM, and Microsoft's PlayReady DRM. Utilizing key-based encryption and decryption processes, these systems are deployed to ensure that only authorized subscribers can access programming and to prevent retransmission by unauthorized parties. The complaint alleges that the defendants (or someone acting in concert with them) circumvented these protections using "either a differential fault analysis attack where faults are injected into the DRM to disrupt its operation and create pathways to extract the keys necessary to decrypt the Programming, or a man-in-the-middle attack whereby customized software is used to bypass the DRM by intercepting the Programming passing from the DRM's decryption library to the user's viewing platform." The plaintiffs claim that the illegally obtained content was subsequently made available via the PrimeStreams service on a subscription basis, in breach of their rights. Direct Sales and Resellers According to the lawsuit, PrimeStreams subscriptions were sold via the platform's domains for roughly $10 per month, with longer periods and additional connections for multiple viewing devices sold at varying prices. In addition, PrimeStreams offered so-called 'reseller credits' to authorized resellers of the PrimeStreams service who service their own customers. Prices per credit (one credit for one month of access) varied between $2.50 and $4.00, depending on quantity. Payments for these reseller credits were made by wire transfer and checks to Dscroggs Investments LLC, with the latter being physically mailed to Daugherty. Some authorized resellers of PrimeStreams allegedly sold the service under their own brands, including Firesticksteve or FSS, Bing TV, and Better Than Cable TV. PrimeStreams Ignored Warning The complaint states that around September 24, 2021, the defendants were notified that their service violates federal laws and told to cease and desist. It appears that the warning was either ignored or rejected, and that's what led to this lawsuit. The decision could prove costly. In addition to a permanent injunction to shut PrimeStreams down and prevent it from reappearing, the plaintiffs are requesting an order that will allow them to "take possession of and destroy" any item or technology that was used to violate the Federal Communications Act or the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. The order should also include a transfer of all PrimeStreams domains to the plaintiffs along with "all hard copy and electronic records regarding persons involved in the PrimeStreams service." One of the domains sought by the plaintiffs currently shows a message dated May 13, two days after the lawsuit was filed. Pinpointing an exact damages figure is impossible at this stage given the available information but when combining the alleged breaches of the FCA and DMCA, it could easily be tens of millions of dollars. Just recently, DISH asked a court to sign off an award of more than half a billion dollars for what appeared to be a lower level of infringement. DISH and Sling's complaint against PrimeStreams can be found here (pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2022 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company