Judge allows case against Megaupload to move ahead

A federal judge declined to throw out the Justice Department's criminal case against file-sharing site Megaupload in an order released on Tuesday.

Megaupload argued that because it has no mailing address in the United States, it is beyond the reach of U.S. law. But Judge Liam O'Grady concluded that there was no procedural problem with serving the papers to the company, which is based in Hong Kong.

"It is doubtful that Congress would stamp with approval a procedural rule permitting a foreign corporate defendant to internationally violate the laws of this country, yet evade jurisdiction of United States' courts by purposefully failing to establish an address here," the judge wrote. 

He added that prosecutors could eventually serve a company executive with the court papers.

Megaupload's founder, Kim Dotcom, is waging a legal battle in New Zealand to avoid extradition to the United States. 

Prosecutors shut down megaupload.com and its related sites in January, and accused the company of criminal copyright infringement. Megaupload, which operated sites such as Megavideo.com and Megapix.com, claimed to receive 50 million daily visitors, accounting for 4 percent of total Internet traffic. According to court documents, Megavideo.com was the world's 52nd most frequently visited website. 

The government said Megaupload's owners generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds from the sites, which offered streams of movies, TV shows and other copyrighted content.

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