Torrentfreak: “Dotcom’s Millions Will Remain Frozen, Court Decides” plus 1 more

Dotcom’s Millions Will Remain Frozen, Court Decides

Posted: 21 Aug 2014 01:05 AM PDT

Just days before the huge raid on Kim Dotcom’s New Zealand home in 2012, foreign restraining orders were granted to enable the seizure of the entrepreneur's assets.

Those orders ran out in April 2014, with the Crown immediately seeking to have them extended. That application was rejected by the High Court, a decision that prompted celebrations from Dotcom alongside speculation on how he might spend some of the money.

But things weren’t over yet. The Crown filed an appeal against the ruling, and today the Court of Appeal handed down its decision. It’s bad news for Dotcom and fellow respondents Bran Van Der Kolk, Megastuff Limited, and Dotcom’s estranged wife, Mona Dotcom.

The judgment handed down by Judges O' Regan, Wild and French in the Court of Appeal concerns the High Court’s dismissal of an application by the Commissioner of Police to extend the restraining order over Dotcom’s assets made by a United States Court.

The High Court’s Judge Thomas previously decided that while the Court had jurisdiction to extend the duration of the restraining orders, it would be inappropriate to do so, a decision which led to the appeal.

While Dotcom supported Judge Thomas’ ultimate ruling, he cross appealed against the finding that there was jurisdiction to extend the restraining order. He also contested the Judge’s decision to extend the order pending the outcome of the appeal.

The Court of Appeal dismissed Dotcom’s cross-appeal in its entirety.

For her part, Mona Dotcom supported her estranged husband’s position but also requested that her property be excluded from any extended order. The Court rejected her submission.

“We allow the appeal, quash the decision of the High Court and make the extension order sought by the Commissioner,” the Court of Appeal judges wrote.

“An order is made extending the duration of the registration of the restraining orders issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on 10 and 25 January 2012 and registered in New Zealand on 18 April 2012 for one year from 18 April 2014.”

The decision means that Dotcom will have to head back to court in April 2015 in the hope of regaining possession of his property which includes millions in cash plus luxury cars and jewelry.

In a Twitter response, Dotcom pondered whether the latest decision and others like it might be straining relations between the High Court and Court of Appeals.

“I wonder how much respect Auckland High Court judges have for the Appeal judges in Wellington. Almost all rulings in my case were overturned,” he wrote.

Dotcom’s much-delayed extradition hearing is scheduled for February 2015.

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Google Asked to Remove 1 Million Pirate Links Per Day

Posted: 20 Aug 2014 09:02 AM PDT

In the hope of steering prospective customers away from pirate sites, copyright holders are overloading Google with DMCA takedown notices.

These requests have increased dramatically since Google began making the data public. A few years ago the search engine received just a few dozen takedown notices during an entire year, but today it processes millions of allegedly infringing links per week.

Over the past months the number of reported URLs has continued to rise. Now, for the first time ever, Google has processed an average of more than one million URLs per day.

Last week Google was asked to remove more than 7.8 million results, up more than 10% compared to the previous record a week earlier. The graph below shows the remarkable increase in requests over the past three years.

To put these numbers in perspective, Google is currently asked to remove an infringing search result every 8 milliseconds, compared to one request per six days back in 2008.

The massive surge in removal requests is not without controversy. It’s been reported that some notices reference pages that contain no copyrighted material, due to mistakes or abuse, but are deleted nonetheless. Google has a pretty good track record of catching these errors, but since manual review of all links is unachievable, some URLs are removed in error.

Google says it’s doing its best to address the concerns of copyright holders. Last year the company released a report detailing the various anti-piracy measures it uses. However, according to some industry groups the search giant can and should do more.

For the RIAA the staggering amount of takedown requests only confirms the notion that the process isn’t very effective. Brad Buckles, RIAA executive vice president of anti-piracy, previously suggested that Google should start banning entire domains from its search results.

"Every day produces more results and there is no end in sight. We are using a bucket to deal with an ocean of illegal downloading," Buckles said.

The issue has also piqued the interest of U.S. lawmakers. Earlier this year the House Judiciary Subcommittee had a hearing on the DMCA takedown issue, and both copyright holders, Internet service providers, and other parties are examining what they can do to optimize the process.

In the meantime, the number of removal requests is expected to rise and rise, with 10 million links per week being the next milestone.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.