After months of hype, Kim Dotcom's successor to his now shut down MegaUpload file sharing website is up and running ... barely. As chronicled by Dotcom's own Twitter feed, the launch of Mega was accompanied by a flood of users trying to sign up for the service.

Nearly a year ago, the popular file sharing website MegaUpload was shut down by the U.S. government, which claimed the site was the bastion for online piracy. Its founder, Kim Dotcom, was arrested, along with several other MegaUpload team members.

The resounding MegaUpload shutdown is almost history, Kim Dotcom is waiting to start a new (seemingly) legit business with its Mega service and researchers are now trying to understand what kind of impact (if any) the end of one of the most popular file sharing services on the Internet had on the entertainment business.

Kim DotCom is back – again: the USA content industry current arch-enemy quickly reacted to the latest domain shutdown and announced that his new service will soon be available at the mega.co.nz URL. On January 19th, DotCom promises, Mega "will change the world".

Google might be pushing for super fast fiber connections, but Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has an even sweeter deal for Kiwis: free fiber for everyone.

Just a couple of weeks back, we brought you the latest on Kim Dotcom’s planned successor to MegaUpload, the file sharing site that was taken down earlier this year by the US Government. Dotcom revealed that the name of the new site would be ‘Mega’, and would continue to allow users to share their files via a remote server, while also offering one-click encryption in the browser.

2012 hasn't exactly been the best year for Kim Dotcom. MegaUpload, the popular file sharing website he helped to create, was shut down by the US government in January. It also executed a raid of his home in New Zealand at the same time. Dotcom was briefly put in jail, along with other MegaUpload team members, and he and his legal team have been fighting in court and awaiting a possible extradition to the US to face online piracy charges ever since.

Megaupload, like any other online file stores, was used by a wide range of users to store a wide range of file types. In January this year, the site was shut down and the owners arrested and charged with copyright infringement, among other things.

January this year the U.S. Government destroyed Megaupload, but founder Kim Dotcom is a not done with the file-hosting business yet and is preparing to come back with a vengeance. The coding work for the new Megaupload is nearly finished, the servers have been ordered, and investors are lining up. A return of the file-hosting site appears to be looming.

Although Kim Dotcom doesn't have to worry about extradition to the US until at least March 2013, the case against the MegaUpload founder which has already seen a number of delays at the ire of the FBI who are desperate to get their hands on him, took yet another twist on Thursday.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, free on bail after spending a month in jail after the file sharing website was shut down in January 2012, has pointed the finger at Vice President Joe Biden as the person who ordered the raid on Megaupload.

The massive US copyright infringement case against Megaupload founder Kim DotCom has found itself in choppy waters, after courts found search warrants used to seize data were invalid. In addition to New Zealand police acting without due process in their evidence collection, the New Zealand Herald reports, Justice Helen Winkelmann also decided that the FBI’s cloning of the confiscated hard-drives was invalid, as DotCom had not given his own consent to the process.

Kim DotCom, the founder of Megaupload and accused pirate king, got an interesting visit last, when Apple co-founder and hacker extraordinaire Steve Wozniak stopped by Dotcom's house during a trip to New Zealand. They also used the occasion to take a (slightly disturbing) Instagram photo, which Dotcom recently shared with the world.

Kim Dotcom, the founder of the now shut down file sharing website MegaUpload, now has the freedom to access the Internet again. Dotcom has been kept from using the Internet ever since he and other team members of MegaUpload have been arrested and charged for online piracy in mid-January.

January's shut down of the MegaUpload file sharing website could be just the tip of the iceberg if Hollywood has its way. The popular site was closed down by US law enforcement officials for allegedly allowing its services to be used to distribute pirated online content.