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On 31 January, the EFF issued a call for the “many ordinary users of Megaupload’s services . . . swept up in the government’s dragnet (who) . . . have lost access to their own data”.

“Megaupload, of course, had many lawful customers,” it said in a public appeal. “Yet those people were given no notice that they might lose access to their data and no clear path to getting their property back. Setting aside the legal case against Megaupload, the government should try to avoid this kind of collateral damage, not create it.”

The filing created another front for the US government, which, by its actions, had taken the Napster principle and turned it on its head. Instead of protecting against infringement by saying files could not be collected on a certain technology, the seizure action came from the other direction — consigning for destruction individual users’ files simply because of how they were stored.

IN PRISON, DOTCOM was wrestling with constant health problems. The excesses of his lifestyle meant he required regular medical visits, fists-full of vitamins, and back treatments to manage immobility and pain from slipped discs. The raid had seen the cash seized and, in jail, he was unable to convince prison doctors he should have the constant care he had previously enjoyed. Details in one of the court files record his health concerns at the time of the raid. It was a seven-point list of problems which became amplified in prison. There was high blood pressure, diabetes, abnormal liver function through fatty liver, high levels of cholesterol in the blood, recurring gout and — most troubling — sciatica through a slipped disc.

Prior to his arrest, Dotcom had medication and vitamins designed to moderate his health conditions. There were daily treatments with a device that shot electricity across the back muscles. He also had daily sessions in the lap pool to keep the slipped disc from causing back spasms.

“They arrest me, I’m in jail without my medication. I’m not given any prescriptions of new medicines from them. While all of this is happening, my back gets worse and worse.” Prisons aren’t made for comfort and the cell in which Dotcom is sent on remand is no different. The mattress is little more than 10cm thick.

“They could clearly see that I wasn’t faking it, that there were spasms going on in my back, that I couldn’t move, that I was in so much pain I couldn’t turn or anything.”

For the first three nights, Dotcom says he couldn’t and didn’t sleep.

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