Late last week 4 people were arrested in Auckland for
extradition to the United States as part of international copyright
infringement proceedings brought by the United States Government in
what they describe as "among the largest criminal
copyright cases ever brought by the Unites States". The
case according to the US Justice Department "directly
targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution
site to commit and facilitate intellectual property
crime".
MegaUpload operated a site where content could be uploaded.
MegaUpload allowed advertisers to display ads on their site and
received a pay per click revenue stream as viewers accessed (non
searchable) pages on their site. MegaUpload offered no directory or
search facility for its content. Third parties could, however,
upload their own content and make available links to that content
on their own websites. These third parties were paid a percentage
of advertising revenue arising from page views on the
