DHAKA: Six of the biggest movie studios have sued Megaupload and its key operators, including founder Kim Dotcom.

They have alleged the site and its operators ‘facilitated, encouraged, and profited’ from copyright infringement.

Megaupload was one of the largest file-sharing sites before it was shut by US regulators in 2012 who have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m in lost revenue.

Dotcom has denied those charges, saying the site was a storage service, reports the BBC.

In a statement, Steven Fabrizio, global general counsel of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), said, ‘When Megaupload.com was shut down in 2012 by US law enforcement, it was by all estimates the largest and most active infringing website targeting creative content in the world’.

The MPAA alleged that Megaupload used to pay users for uploading popular content and as a result was not a storage service.

BDST: 2016 HRS, APR 08, 2014