In one of his first interviews since being released on bail, MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak that the charges against him and his company are "nonsense."

In the interview, Dotcom addressed the two infringing files that the indictment claims he personally uploaded: a 50 Cent song and a Louis Armstrong song. He claims the songs were purchased legally and uploaded to test a new private link email feature.

He also says that allegations that MegaUpload prevented Warner Bros. from deleting infringing content are bogus. In fact, MegaUpload wasn't legally required to provide companies with a direct-delete feature at all, and Warner was allowed to remove more links from MegaUpload than any other copyright holder.

Dotcom says he has emails showing that Warner Bros. and other entertainment companies were actively using MegaUpload and wanted to partner with the company. He says Warner even asked MegaUpload to create a tool to automatically upload their content.

"We did nothing wrong. Watch out for our first motion in response to the MPAA-sponsored Department of Justice indictment. It will be enlightening and maybe entertaining," Dotcom said.

[geek]

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom may be about to have some of his seized assets returned by New Zealand authorities due to a paperwork error surrounding the raid of Dotcom Mansion.

Police applied for the wrong type of restraining order before raiding Dotcom's home back in January. Instead of an interim restraining order, they used a foreign restraining order, which prevented Dotcom from mounting a defense.

Police did eventually file the right paperwork after the fact, but a New Zealand High Court Justice has ruled that the initial order should never have been filed, and is now "null and void."

It remains to be seen whether the mistake will result in the return of the Megaupload chief's property. New Zealand law does allow for such mistakes, but if Dotcom's lawyers can prove the wrong order was filed with "a lack of good faith," authorities will have to give back the seized assets.

[ars]

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has given his first TV interview since being arrested, appearing on 3News New Zealand's Campbell Live to make the case that he's no "pirate king," and Megaupload hasn't done anything wrong.

Dotcom says he's accused of causing $13 billion of damage to the U.S. music industry, which he calls "mind-boggling and unreleastic," considering that the entire industry is worth $20 billion.

"It's really, in my opinion, the government of the United States protecting an outdated monopolistic business model that doesn't work anymore in the age of the internet and that's what it all boils down to," he said.

Dotcom also wonders why none of the companies allegedly damaged by Megaupload ever sued him for those damages.

"If you are a company that is hurt so much by what we are doing, billions of dollars of damage, you don't wait and sit and do nothing. You call your lawyers and you try and sue us and try to stop us from what we are doing," he said.

As for the suggestion that Megaupload should have been proactively checking users' accounts for copyright-infringing material, Dotcom says it wasn't possible, because doing so would have violated U.S. privacy laws.

The Megaupload founder is still out on bail -- despite an attempt by the U.S. government to have him locked up again -- and awaiting a date for his extradition hearing.

[3news]