Big film studios sue Kim Dotcom and Megaupload for infringing copyright
Megaupload, the formerly Hong Kong-based site which US authorities shut down in 2012, facilitated a "massive copyright infringement of movies and television shows", according to a statement issued by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) on Monday.
Several major US studios filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the file-sharing website Megaupload and its ebullient founder, Kim Dotcom.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, all MPAA members, are Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Productions, Columbia Pictures and Warner Brothers Entertainment.
"Megaupload wasn't a cloud storage service at all, it was an unlawful hub for mass distribution," Steven Fabrizio, an attorney for the MPAA, said in the statement.
US authorities allege Megaupload cost film studios and record companies more than US$500 million and generated more than US$175 million by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted material, such as films and TV shows.
Dotcom says Megaupload was merely an online warehouse and should not be held accountable if stored content was obtained illegally.
Monday's lawsuit, filed in the US district court for the Eastern District of Virginia, said Dotcom and other defendants "profited handsomely" by providing thousands of copyrighted works over the internet to millions of Megaupload users without authorisation or licence.