Dotcom bust
- MOST people running a business that could end up on the wrong end of
a lawsuit would keep a low profile. Not Kim Dotcom (pictured). The boss
of Megaupload, a popular website that let users store and share music,
films and other content, Mr Dotcom went out of his way to attract
attention—and not just by changing his surname from Schmitz. He
surrounded himself with glamorous women and fast cars bearing number
plates such as “GUILTY”. He likened himself to Dr Evil, a movie
villain, though he looks more like Dr Evil’s henchman, Fat Bastard.
- American investigators examining Megaupload’s business concluded
that it was encouraging its users to share pirated content. They
persuaded authorities in Britain, Hong Kong and other countries to
seize the firm’s assets and to arrest its owners, including Mr Dotcom,
who was nabbed by police in New Zealand on January 20th after being
found with a shotgun in a “safe room” at his mega-mansion. The raid
occurred just as Hollywood was howling after Congress gave up on a bill
to crack down on piracy.
- Their critics say this shows that cyberlockers realise illegal
file-sharing will no longer be tolerated. Correspondence cited in an
indictment of the Megaupload site in America suggests that the firm
knew of the problems with illegal content. “We’re not pirates,” writes
the author of one e-mail cited in it. “We’re just providing shipping
services to pirates.”
- The legal assault on Megaupload will probably cause at least some
traffic to migrate to cyberlockers in Russia and other countries where
property rights are weak. Determined pirates could also make more use
of “torrent” sites such as The Pirate Bay, which allow peer-to-peer
transfers. The technology underlying such sites could make them even
trickier to deal with than cyberlockers. ~The Economist
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