US authorities have filed new criminal charges against Kim Dotcom (Schmitz) and other employees of the file-sharing site Megaupload for wire fraud and copyright infringement.
The DOJ (Justice Department) said the superceding indictment provides much more evidence that the website was indulging in massive piracy by facilitating downloads of copyrighted works, according to AFP.
Megaupload exaggerated its claims stating that it had more than 180m registered users, while in reality there were only 66.6m, added the Department.
It was also established that only 5.86m had ever uploaded a single file to either Megaupload.com or Megavideo.com, which showed that more than 90% of Megaupload’s users used the site only for downloading purpose.
The new indictment also said that Megaupload never took action against one user, identified only as "VV," who had uploaded 16,950 files to the sites.
His act had resulted in generating more than 34m views, which included copies of copyrighted hit movies, including Ocean’s Thirteen and Ratatouille.
The Justice Department said internal records reflect no deletions of any of VV’s uploaded files.
Also included in the indictment were additional assets like bank accounts, jet skis, jewellery and watches.
Megaupload was shut down on January 19 on charges of copyright violations, as five of the seven people charged have been arrested.
Dotcom is also under detention in New Zealand.
