It wasn't that they knew about individual instances of piracy (otherwise, Dropbox, Google and Microsoft's execs would be sitting in the same jail cell, since th

It wasn't that they knew about individual instances of piracy (otherwise, Dropbox, Google and Microsoft's execs would be sitting in the same jail cell, since they all run similar file sharing services, and all those services have been used for piracy at scale). The legal problem was that the prosecutors had proof that Megaupload employees were encouraging piracy. If Megaupload were in the US, they'd probably also be in trouble for violating the DMCA takedown process rules, but that law doesn't apply in NZ.