For Dotcom, continuing the legal fight could be his best option
Will Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom cut a deal with the FBI over the website accused of costing copyright holders US$500 million ($788m)?
Extradition is no longer a prospect for three out of the four Megaupload accused.
Dotcom is the lonely man in the dock with news of a deal between the United States and former Megaupload executives Bram van der Kolk and Mathias Ortmann.
They will appear in the Auckland District Court on May 19 on copyright-related charges. A trial here means no more extradition to the US.
Extradition is also off for Finn Batato, Megaupload’s former marketing director. He has developed extremely serious cancer which may yet claim his life.
It’s hard to see what deal Dotcom could offer or be offered. He has invested an enormous amount of his public image in opposition to the US.
On Twitter yesterday, he said he would “fight on”. “I’m now the last man standing in this fight and I will continue to fight because, unlike my co-defendants, I won’t accept the injustice we have been subjected to.”
The FBI would have it that Megaupload was a criminal organisation and Dotcom, as leader of that organisation, would be the most culpable.
Dotcom conceived of Megaupload, drove its development and pulled in around $60m in 2010 from the company which, the FBI allege, offered access to movies, music and other copyrighted material.
Since the 2012 arrest, Dotcom has harangued presidents while attacking institutions with accusations of conspiracy and corruption while courting US enemies such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. He’s compelled by an anger over the destruction of Megaupload which he always maintained was legal and valued at US$2 billion ($3.15b).
A deal seems unlikely, at least in the next few years. He would be expected to fall, and hard.
It might still be that Dotcom’s best option is to not cut a deal.
If (probably when) Minister of Justice Kris Faafoi signs the extradition warrant, Dotcom will appeal that decision to the High Court. And so on, and so on. Years will fly by. It will go back to another Minister of Justice and there will likely be another challenge as — Dotcom will argue — the reasons to reject extradition (family, health) have grown even greater. Van der Kolk and Ortmann will have lived through the worst consequences of the deal they have struck and Dotcom will still be fighting.
It will not be many years until Dotcom has spent more time fighting extradition than the time Megaupload existed.
The US calls Dotcom a “fugitive from justice”. He might just stay that way forever — a fugitive in luxury in a mansion outside Queenstown, tweeting his fury and innocence at the world.