Lawyers for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom are taking their appeal of a decision on the 2012 raid of his mansion that led to the file-sharing site owner's property being seized. Yesterday the Supreme Court gave Dotcom permission to appeal a February Court of Appeal ruling that overturned an earlier High Court decision that the 2012 raid was unlawful. At the center of the raid is whether the warrants used to launch the operation were legal.

The U.S. government does not have to disclose the evidence it will use against Megaupload owner Kim Dotcom prior to extraditing him to the United States, the New Zealand Supreme Court has ruled. In a 123-page ruling on Thursday the highest court in New Zealand said that there is no precedent to force the U.S. government to show its evidence prior to extradition.

Crowd funding service Kickstarter will soon be available in Australia and New Zealand, allowing projects of all shapes and sizes to pitch to the public at large. Kickstarter will officially launch in these new regions on November 13 and those interested in starting projects to be ready for the service's launch can get started now.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom (and others related to the Megaupload case) has filed a lawsuit against the New Zealand government over its illegal spying activities against him and the subsequent raid on his house in early 2012. A New Zealand Court granted him the right to sue earlier this year. New court documents published this week by the New Zealand Herald show that Dotcom is seeking NZ$8.55 million ($6.9 million) in damages.

Software developers and patent trolls take note: the New Zealand government has passed a law that essentially makes the practice of patenting software illegal and unenforceable in the region. The law, which was under consideration and amended several times over the last five years, repeals and replaces the Patents Act 1953, which was based on the United Kingdom Patents Act 1949.

A 19-year-old man has asked police to lock him up for the remainder of his sentence in jail because he is tired of playing Xbox 360 games under house arrest. While the 19-year-old man in Whangarei, New Zealand was on easy street - confined to his home and placed under electronic surveillance - he begged to serve the last month of his 11 month sentence in jail because he ran out of Xbox games to play. He is now serving out the rest of his sentence in the Northland Region Corrections Facility, which houses 548 minimum to high security prisoners.

A New Zealand Court has ruled that Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is entitled to all the evidence that was seized illegally (according to a NZ court ruling) in early 2012. The FBI and the Department of Justice, who are looking to extradite Dotcom from New Zealand to America to face a litany of charges related to his file-sharing and data storage service, only wanted to share one document. During the raid on his mansion law enforcement seized property and lots and lots of data.

Megaupload co-founder Kim Dotcom has launched a teaser site for "Mega" at Me.ga. Dotcom says that the placeholder site is already getting millions of hits despite offering very little to visitors beyond information on how it will work when it launches. Kim Dotcom claims that Mega will use encryption methods that make it so that only those users who are uploading something know what it is. By hiding what users are uploading, Dotcom hopes to avoid the long arm of U.S. law enforcement.

Two weeks ago New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security revealed that the government had illegally spied on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom. Specifically he said in his report that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) carried out illegal surveillance on Dotcom, because the agency is only allowed to carry out that kind of action against foreign targets. When the news became public, New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key apologized to Dotcom.

On Monday New Zealand prime minister John Key revealed that he has ordered an investigation into what he calls "unlawful interception of certain individuals by the Government Communications Security Bureau" related to illegal bugging of Kim Dotcom. Some of that surveillance led to Kim Dotcom’s arrest in January. The investigation throws another monkey wrench in the U.S. government's attempt to extradite the Megaupload file-sharing site to face various charges.

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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."

A New Zealand Judge has handed a partial victory to Megaupload Founder Kim Dotcom today, ruling that part of the search and seizure that resulted in the shutdown and destruction of MegaUpload’s business and the arrest of Dotcom was illegal. The judge said that police went too far when they secured and then copied the contents of hard drives from some 135 computers under a "general warrant."

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.

Parents in New Zealand and Australia are embracing the idea that video games can serve as great tools to engage and educate children, according to new research commissioned by the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (iGEA).

A New Zealand Court has lightened some of the restrictions on Megaupload founders Kim Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato. Noting the four had "behaved commendably" since their release from jail, North Shore District Court Judge David Harvey granted Dotcom access to the Internet, limited access to a swimming pool near his home (that he owns) and two trips each week to Roundhead Studios in Auckland to finish an album. Yes, Dotcom is making a music album. Dotcom was released from jail in March, but had a number of heavy restrictions put on him.

Dulles, Virginia-based hosting firm Carpathia Hosting is tired of storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data on more than 1,000 servers in North America because of the government's shutdown of the file-sharing site in January, and is asking a federal court to relieve them of their obligations and any liability.

According to New Zealand's High Court, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom may get all of the assets that police seized when they took him into custody in January (thanks to Bear-Dogg-X for the tip). On Friday, High Court Justice Judith Potter declared that the order used to seize Dotcom’s property was "null and void" after finding out that police filed for the wrong kind of court order - an order the High Court says should never been granted in the first place.

It's official: the U.S. government wants to extradite four members of Megaupload to the United States for a litany of charges including racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering. On Friday U.S. prosecutors filed extradition requests against four New Zealand-based defendants - including founder Kim Dotcom.

MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom has been given bail by a New Zealand court, with some restrictions of course. Dotcom was awarded bail after a judge determined that he wasn't a flight risk.

"I am relieved to go home to see my family, my three little kids and my pregnant wife,” Dotcom told reporters outside court. "And I hope you understand that that is all I want to say right now."

The New Zealand video game development industry grew by 46 percent, offering 359 equivalent full-time jobs in the 12 months to September 2011, according to the New Zealand Game Developers Association (NZGDA). The NZGDA surveyed 21 NZ game studios in September. Of those surveyed, the vast majority of these New Zealand studios were owned by people or companies that are from the region too, according to NZGDA chairman Stephen Knightly.