The MegaUpload MegaSaga continues with a Virginia grand jury bringing additional criminal charges against the Web site and its operators.
As we reported before, the original indictment against the operators included charges of conspiracy to commit racketeering, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering and criminal copyright infringement.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the new charges being brought against MegaUpload are more counts of criminal copyright infringement and wire fraud.
In detail, the new charges allege that MegaUpload stole content from third-party sites like Google with the intent of making it available on their servers.
The information also shows that MegaUpload only had 66.6 million registered users. MegaUpload themselves claimed to have 180 million users. What may be more damning is that authorities claim that only 5.86 million of these users actually uploaded files.
MegaUpload’s U.S. Attorney, Ira Rothken, said that the new charges aren’t going to change the defense. The data that the government is pulling off of the servers that led to the new charges are of little value according to Rothken.
These new charges seem to not bode well for MegaUpload, but we won’t know anything for sure until a verdict is made in Kim Dotcom’s extradition battle.