Four men arrested in New Zealand for their involvement with the file-sharing website Megaupload now face extra charges, including taking copyrighted material from websites like YouTube.
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and three other men were arrested at Dotcom's $30 million rented mansion in Coatesville in a police raid on January 20.
They face charges in the US of racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering and are awaiting proceedings to extradite them to the US.
Another man has been arrested in the Netherlands, while two other suspects remain at large.
A new indictment, filed in a US court and released on Friday, adds eight additional charges of copyright infringement and wire fraud against Dotcom, six Megaupload employees and two related companies.
The wire fraud charges relate to allegations the accused led copyright holders to believe that if they notified Megaupload about infringing files, those files would be removed.
However, at best, only the links identified would be disabled, the indictment says.
Megaupload also led copyright holders to believe infringing users would have their accounts terminated, but it never took action against one user, referred to as VV, who allegedly uploaded 16,950 files - including copyrighted movies - to its websites over six years.
VV was, in fact, rewarded with $3400 from Megaupload through its rewards programme in less than two years, the indictment says.
The indictment says Megaupload had 66.6 million registered users in January, but fewer than 10 per cent had uploaded even a single file, suggesting most were using the site to download copyrighted material.
It also accused Megaupload of taking copyrighted material from other websites, including YouTube.
The indictment lists assets, including property, dozens of cars and bank accounts, jewellery, artworks and jet skis, among seized items subject to forfeiture.
Dotcom remains in custody after the Auckland High Court rejected his appeal after being denied bail.
Bail has been granted to his co-accused Finn Batato, 38, and Mathias Ortmann, both of Germany, and Dutch national Bram van der Kolk, 29.
Extradition papers are expected to be filed on February 22.
NZN