The battle over returning legitimate files and data stored on Megaupload's servers has hit a brick wall leaving anyone who made the mistake of storing important data there uncertain about whether they will ever get it back. Megaupload’s 1103 servers are gathering dust at Carpathia Hosting in the United States and Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken tells TorrentFreak that, despite best efforts, efforts are stalled.

It looks like it might be hard for rights holders in various entertainment industries to sue individuals who have open Wi-Fi networks for copyright infringement done by guests, if the following court case is any indication. A California man whose open network was allegedly used to download a copyrighted video cannot be sued, according to a ruling by a federal judge.

The complaint filed in April of this year alleged that Hatfield was negligent because he didn't secure his network, and therefore liable.

You may remember that the newly elected French president said recently that it might not fund the country's Hadopi agency. Hadopi, in case you'd forgotten is a copyright protection enforcement regime that uses a "three-strikes" policy that disconnects repeat offenders from the internet. President Francois Hollande hinted during his campaign that he might reform the agency to make it less repressive and more cooperative. Later in August he said that he would be scaling back funding for it. Now Hadopi is fighting back against the notion of having its resources clipped.

While the three-strikes-rule may be considered a good idea by most rightsholders, ISP's say that they end up paying the lion's share of the costs associated with such systems. According to this TorrentFreak report, ISPs in New Zealand claim that they end up paying upwards of 76 percent of the costs.

In a new blog post, Sandra Fulton, a member of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office, describes the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as the "biggest threat to free speech and intellectual property that you’ve never heard of." Fulton makes a good point because U.S. trade Representatives negotiating the treaty and other countries are doing a hell of a job keeping the details of this trade treaty a big secret.

At the beginning of this year as law enforcement agencies in New Zealand, the U.S., and Hong Kong worked together to shut down Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom's file-sharing empire, it seized just about every asset the charismatic NZ resident owned - including all of his money. This naturally made it tough for Dotcom to pay his legal fees.

But a judgment today by the High Court in Auckland, New Zealand will give Dotcom some relief.

In a series of recent tweets, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom announced details on the API for the new Megaupload, which he hinted at in July. Dotcom said earlier in the month that a new Megaupload site would be bigger, faster, better, free of charge and shielded from attacks.

In a new series of tweets Dotcom describes the API's features:

"Developers get ready," he teased via Twitter. "The Mega API [application programming interface] will provide incredible powers. Our API and your Mega tools will change the world."

Today Google began a new initiative that basically buries the search results of websites that have a substantial amount of "valid claims" of copyright infringement filed against it. But, as the BBC reports, two major file-sharing sites are saying that the new way in which Google is organizing the search results will likely drive even more traffic directly to their domains. So just who are the two sites making these claims? The Pirate Bay and Isohunt. Both sites also claim that Google search results are not their main source of traffic.

If the U.S. government thought they were going to skate right through the New Zealand Courts to bring Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom to America to face charges, they might have figured out that there are a few cracks in their plans.

On Monday we reported that the MPAA and the RIAA recommended to Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel that the United States government do more to combat online piracy like they did with Megaupload. Today Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom offers his two cents on the MPAA's and RIAA's recommendations and goes so far as to say that these trade groups have "corrupted the government."

Major UK Internet service provider Virgin Media has finally been ordered by the courts to block subscriber access to file-sharing site, Newzbin2. The company had rejected earlier calls by rights groups such as the Motion Picture Association to block the site voluntarily. The company issued the following statement yesterday:

Google has decided to play ball with rights holders, according to this Politico report. The world's biggest search engine revealed that it will now make search results from sites with "frequent copyright removal notices" appear lower in Google search rankings. Google announced late Friday that web sites with high numbers of "valid" removal notices would be affected by this new policy.

After the Ukrainian Government took down the BitTorrent site Demonoid (at the request of Interpol, apparently), hacktivist group Anonymous attacked several government websites and vowed more actions in the future as a form of protest. The Kyiv Post is reporting that the web pages for the Ukrainian Anti-Piracy Association, the Ukrainian Agency for Copyright and Related Rights, and the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine were unavailable for a short amount of time.

Earlier this week you may have heard Kim Dotcom describe the raid on his mansion as excessive. While that sounds like something a defendant might say, watching this news report out of New Zealand featuring footage from the raid will help you come to the same conclusion.

Watching law enforcement enter into the compound of the mansion with police dogs, helicopters and dozens of agents might make you think that Osama Bin Laden was still alive and under siege in a swank New Zealand mansion... Watch the video and judge for yourselves.

According to the BBC, one of the world's largest BitTorrent sites in the world has been shut down. Ukraine-based BitTorrent site Demonoid has been shut down by Ukrainian authorities. Officials from the Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs raided the data center that was hosting website's servers.

France's new culture minister has indicated that she will drastically cut the budget from the internet copyright infringement agency Hadopi. She will also encourage the agency to lay off on kicking people off the Internet, much to the delight of internet advocates. Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti has appointed former Canal+ pay-TV CEO Pierre Lescure to conduct a review of France's Act II, a set of rules for protecting culture in the digital age - which includes the use of the Hadopi agency for enforcement.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has launched a song online attacking U.S. President Barack Obama and urging supporters not to vote for him in November. The song and video on YouTube is called "Mr President" and offers dire warnings to U.S. voters about the President such as "don't vote for those who would take us back in time."

In another line from the song he says"what about free speech Mr President, what happened to change Mr President." 

The legal team representing Megaupload (founder Kim Dotcom and others associated with the file-sharing and storage site) has submitted a response to the U.S. government’s argument that Megaupload should face prosecution in the U.S. despite not having a physical address in the country. They are accusing the Department of Justice of trying to make up their own rules to keep the criminal case alive when the case should be dismissed. Earlier this month lawyers for Megaupload asked the court to do just that because U.S.

The New Zealand judge overseeing the extradition of Kim Dotcom (the founder of file-sharing site Megaupload) has removed himself from the case after comments about the U.S. government being "the enemy" caught up to him. Last week at the NetHui conference in Auckland, Judge Harvey said that New Zealand had "met the enemy, and he is the US." The reference was related to how the U.S. handles copyright cases.

The New Zealand Judge overseeing the ongoing case against Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has made the news by calling the United States the enemy of his country when it comes to IP law. Speaking at the NetHui conference in Auckland last week, District Court Judge David Harvey said what he thought about the United States:

"We have met the enemy, and he is the US," he said during the event.

Porn publisher Liberty Media is trying out a new tactic in fighting against illegal downloads of its adult films: suing Wi-Fi network owners with negligence. The tactic, which it tested in the Southern District Court of New York (LIBERTY MEDIA HOLDINGS, LLC, v. CARY TABORA and SCHUYLER WHETSTONE) failed miserably.

Megaupload founder Kim DotCom was probably delighted to learn this week in a New Zealand court that his extradition hearing had been pushed to March of 2013. This gives him and his co-defendants a lot more time to fight the U.S. government's plans to extradite them to America to face a number of charges related to the popular file-sharing and hosting site allegedly used to share copyrighted materials. The U.S. government and New Zealand authorities took the site offline in January of this year and arrested DotCom and his colleagues for the aforementioned crimes.

Megaupload found Kim DotCom won't have to worry about the prospect of being shipped off to the United States to faces various charges related to the U.S. government's takedown of the popular file sharing and storage site. A New Zealand judge has pushed DotCom's extradition hearing to March of 2013. Naturally this will give DotCom more time to prepare for whatever lawyers for the U.S. government can throw at him.

A class action lawsuit claims that the adult entertainment industry has found a new business model to earn money: threatening alleged illegal downloaders with an embarrassing and very public lawsuit if they do not settle out of court. The lead plaintiff in the case is Jennifer Barker. Her lawsuit names Patrick Collins Inc., Malibu Media, K-Beech, Third Degree Films, and London-based Raw Films.

Speaking to TorrentFreak, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom alleges that Vice President Joe Biden ordered the Megaupload shutdown at the behest of former Connecticut Senator (D) and current Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) President Chris Dodd. He claims that he has information from a "reliable source" that the Megaupload case and the subsequent takedown of the file storage site was a "gift to Hollywood."

Denmark's government has decided that the best way to deal with illegal filesharing and piracy isn't by using letter-writing campaigns or punishing downloaders. After a long debate on the topic, the country has decided that the best course of action moving forward is to focus on the development and creation of better legal offerings for end users and education.

According to a Wired report, Japanese politicians are pushing hard for a new law that would make it a crime to download or make unauthorized copies of copyrighted material. The new law would also make it illegal to use copyright circumvention devices. Those breaking the law could face up to two years in prison and a two million yen ($25,400) fine. We assume the devices being referred to are like the R4 used to copy DS games...

The United States government has a suggestion for Megaupload users that can't get their legal data from the file-sharing and storage company: sue them or the service provider for Megaupload. Basically they are saying that since they have gotten the data they wanted from the servers they seized, it's not their problem anymore.

According to New Zealand publication Stuff, the FBI is on the defense after being accused in court by lawyers representing file sharing site Megaupload that it illegally exported data it seized from the company and its founder Kim Dotcom.

Lawyers for Megaupload won a legal victory in court this week against the U.S. Government and pushed ahead with requests to have the case dismissed outright and - barring that - release the seized assets of the company.