Megaupload Founder Must Get By On $50,000 Per Month [Court Order]

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is currently fighting extradition to the United States where he faces illegal copyright and racketeering charges and until that decision is handed down he has been ordered to live off a measly $50,000 per month.

A New Zealand court granted Dotcom the allowance while also providing the MegaUpload CEO with the use of his $120,000 Mercedes.

Money for his living expenses will come from Dotcom’s frozen assets while the Mercedes is just one of 21 vehicles confiscated when Dotcom and other Megaupload employees were arrested in January.

This isn’t the first time the Dotcom family has received money from their frozen accounts, Dotcom’s wife Mona was award nearly $16,000 per month for living expenses and an additional $10,000 to pay for the birth of the couple’s twins.

Dotcom and three of his arrested employees must now wait until August to determine if they will face extradition to the United States.

While Dotcom is being paid $50,000 per month as he awaits the courts decision, hosting company Carpathia is being forced to spend $9,000 per day to host nearly 30 petabytes worth of data from Megaupload servers. The U.S. Government has given Carpathia permission to delete the files however Kim Dotcom’s lawyers and the MPAA have filed motions to have that data saved for use in their own lawsuits and defense. Because MegaUpload assets are frozen Carpathia has not been paid in months.

Do you think the New Zealand court system made the right decision in handing over hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kim Dotcom as he awaits a final decision regarding his extradition to the United States?