(Image Source: Mega ) BY CHARESSE JAMES ANCHOR CHRISTIAN BRYANT A year after file-storage site MegaUpload was brought down by U.S. law enforcement officials targeting piracy, its outspoken founder Kim DotCom has cut the ribbon on his new site, “Mega.” Set to launch fully in the United States Sunday, “Mega” is currently a splash page with the promise to be “bigger, better, faster, stronger [and] safer” than its unfortunate predecessor. According to The Next Web , after pressing play on Mega, one year after Megaupload was scuttled by the government, Kim Dotcom announced that his new service had gathered 100,000 registered users in its first hour as a live product. “Given the stunning demise of Megaupload, which led to the freezing of endless quantities of both pirate and legitimate data, the launch of Mega is construable as a challenge of sorts: take it down again, Kim dares you. Kim himself has called the new service ‘100% Safe & Unstoppable.’ Another challenge.” The phrase “stunning demise” sounds a tad dramatic, but the takedown of Megaupload was certainly unprecedented. In addition to pulling the site from the web completely and an international police raid of DotCom’s New Zealand home... ...The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking his extradition to face racketeering, money laundering and copyright-infringement charges. Prosecutors say his site generated more than $175 million from the exchange of pirated films, music, book and software files. Dotcom has denied any wrongdoing, but could face as long as 20 years in prison if convicted. This time around, the cyberpioneer says everything about Mega will be just as legit as Dropbox, Boxnet and any other cloud service platforms - telling Sky News , “...a new military-grade encryption system will also keep users' files safe from prying eyes and strip the site from liability of knowingly allowing users to distribute copyrighted films.” According to Sky News, The Motion Picture Association of America has said file encryption alone would not protect Dotcom from future liability, saying that given his history, they’ll be skeptical. Dotcom’s extradition hearing has been scheduled to begin in August of this year.