In what could be described as a small win, New Zealand's Court of Appeal has ordered local police to provide MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom with copies of data from all of the electronic devices that were confiscated during the raid on his Coatesville mansion back in 2012.
The Court believes that Dotcom and his legal team should have access to information on the seized devices in order to properly prepare for his upcoming extradition hearing. Said hearings were supposed to take place this year but have since been delayed until February 2015.
The Court instructed law enforcement officials to return the clones "as soon as reasonably practicable." Even still, however, Dotcom won't be getting all of the data back right away.
Prosecutors told the Court last month that they haven't yet handed over the data due to the fact that some of it was encrypted, making it impossible for police to verify its contents. The Court said it understood the prosecution's concern with regard to the encrypted data and as such, they only have to hand over the non-encrypted data right now.
The encrypted data will remain in police custody until Dotcom agrees to give the encryption key to two nominated police officers. These officers will be prohibited from sharing the encryption password with anyone, especially any representative of the US government.
No word yet on whether or not Dotcom plans to give up the encryption password.