But what happened instead was that a prosecutor found they were not protected under safe harbor. With the stroke of a pen, that turned the business into a criminal racket. Overly general mafia and drug war laws then allow the prosecutor to confiscate property and freeze funds, killing the business.
Of course a judge still has to sign off, but there are no provisions for the accused to defend themself or even be informed of the process.
If you don't believe commercial piracy on an industrial scale should be criminalized, then naturally you'd believe that there aren't enough due process constraints on the DoJ to pursue those cases. But if you accept the fact that creating hugely profitable high-volume piracy applications is a crime under US law, it's hard to see the "due process" problem here.
No. The DOJ destroyed the Mega business, and froze Kim Dotcom's assets, and the prosecution will take years to work its way through the courts. Worse yet, they hoodwinked our officials here in New Zealand to come along for the ride. It's a day of shame, not one to defend.
This is one of the most virulent misconceptions about copyright law on HN. The DMCA does not say that you are protected as long as you honor takedown notices. In addition to honoring them, you must not have any specific knowledge of infringing use of your service that you fail to act on. If any idiot can hit the front page of your site and see that it's used mostly for piracy, law enforcement will take an interest in you once you get big. If, during discovery, they find email messages showing you conspiring to keep copyrighted material on your site, they'll charge you criminally.