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representatives at the hosting company Carpathia to confirm seven Megaupload user accounts were implicated by payment details. The FBI quoted Ortmann saying the MD5 hashes showed the content was among the website's most popular — it had been uploaded by more than 2000 users. Of the 39 films, there were still 36 to be found when the FBI checked again on 18 November 2011. The FBI indictment said: "The Mega Conspiracy has continued to store copies of at least thirty-six of the thirty-nine motion pictures on its servers after the Mega Conspiracy was informed of the infringing content."

The NinjaVideo takedown emerged in another part of the indictment — although again it wasn't directly named. This was in a reference to Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement's move against websites seen as harbouring infringing material, Operation In Our Sites. It was coverage about this on the TorrentFreak site — which highlighted that even linking sites were being targeted — which had Dotcom asking if Megaupload's servers should be moved out of the US.

THE EMAILS FEATURED in the indictment show the war of copyright was escalating, and come at a time when the FBI had opened its investigation into Megaupload, the very company it had sought help from in the NinjaVideo inquiry.

The concerns over copyright were being conveyed directly to Megaupload, the indictment showed. In November 2010, the company was in discussions with Universal Music Group over licensing music for Dotcom's planned Megabox venture. Universal wanted Megaupload to process takedown notices faster, filtering "to ensure that there is no infringing music content hosted on its service", to "terminate the accounts of users that repeatedly infringe copyright" and to "limit the number of possible downloads from each file".

There were other pressures, along with those from the US government. The Recording Industry Association of America was campaigning against "payment services such as Mastercard" accepting payments from sites such as Megaupload. A reporter's email cited the RIAA as saying it believed Megaupload was "dedicated to facilitating copyright infringement".

Ortmann's proposed response, approved by Dotcom, initially said: "We are watching the unfolding events with interest, but as the vast majority of our revenue is coming from advertising, the effect on our business will be limited."

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