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MegaUpload lawyers want further postponement of civil litigation
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 23 July 2014
Legal reps for the former MegaUpload company and its founder Kim Dotcom have requested that a postponement of litigation against their clients from the US movie and music industries be extended into 2015.
As previously reported, trade bodies for the big movie studios and record companies in the US sued Dotcom et al earlier this year over allegations the defendants encouraged and enabled rampant copyright infringement through their former file-transfer business.
But the one-time Mega chiefs are also facing a criminal prosecution over the same claims in the US, and their legal reps argued that it would be inappropriate for the civil actions to reach court before the criminal proceedings have gone through the motions.
Albeit with some conditions, the movie and music industries did not oppose that move to postpone their legal action, and so last month a judge froze their litigation until August, when an extradition hearing was due to take place in New Zealand, with US prosecutors trying to force Dotcom et al back to America.
However, that extradition hearing, originally due to take place in summer 2012, has now been pushed back to next February, so Team Mega want the postponement of civil litigation extended too. To next April, in fact.
It remains to be seen whether the judge approves this new postponement, though if the music and movie industries don’t object he probably will.