Still, Mega is riding a fine line that could attract the attention of lawmakers, said Paul Kocher, president and chief scientist of Cryptography Research in San Francisco.
"If Mega gains traction and doesn't get shut down for other reasons, they'll likely prompt changes to the laws," Kocher said. "Mega is essentially treating the legal system as if it's a computer system whose bugs that can be exploited, but Congress and the courts care about consequences and intentions and will act if there really are loopholes.
"In other words, if the existing laws can't stop Mega from making money by inducing wide-scale piracy, the likely outcome will be new restrictions on everybody," Kocher said.
Dotcom, along with six Megaupload colleagues and two companies, were indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury in January 2012 on charges of criminal copyright infringement. U.S. prosecutors, who are pursuing extradition of Dotcom and others, allege Megaupload netted US$175 million in advertising and subscription revenue on the back of a brisk trade in content protected by copyright.
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