Megaupload founder and businessman Kim Dotcom has been called many things; Internet tycoon, eccentric entrepreneur, but digital revolutionary?
Sunday night (January 20th) saw the man born Kim Schmitz relaunching his online storage site, one year to the day since the high profile raid on his New Zealand mansion that saw his digital empire crumble, but following months of speculation, the batty media mogul’s new online storage service has launched into beta mode online.
NME reports that, in typically bizarre fashion, Dotcom held the relaunch of his storage service, now named Mega, over the weekend in a glamorous press conference on the forecourt of his Coatesville mansion, located just outside of Auckland, New Zealand, on the one year anniversary of his 2012 arrest, where New Zealand police arrested the Megaupload leader as part of a major US investigation into alleged copyright theft and shut down his website Megaupload.
In front of audience of 200+ guest and media, Dotcom staged a faux police raid, a re-enactment of his 2012 arrest that saw men scaling the sides of his mansion, and a helicopter mocked up to look like an FBI chopper flying over the crowd, all to the tune of dramatic action hero music (view the madness up top).
A dramatic way to christen the new service, which offers users 50GB of free storage and uses encryption software to keep your uploads private. According to its creator the service is ‘perfectly legal’, and it has already snagged over 1 million registered users, according to Venture Beat.
Following the theatrics, The Next Web reports Dotcom then hosted a Q&A, fielding queries from press and guests about his new service. “Legally, there’s just nothing there that could be used to shut us down,” says Dotcom. “This site is just as legitimate and has the right to exist as Dropbox, Boxnet, and other competitors.”
Then added: “Mega believes in your right to privacy and has developed technology that keeps your data private and safe. By using Mega, you say no to those who want to know everything about you. You say no to governments that want to spy on you. You say ‘yes’ to internet freedom and your right to privacy.”“Legally, there’s just nothing there that could be used to shut us down.” – Kim Dotcom
The conspiratorial tone to the media mogul’s comments is probably fuelled by his theory that Megaupload was originally shut down by the FBI and US Department of Justice, on behalf of the Record Industry Association of America and Hollywood studios, was because of the launch of his proposed music service, Megabox.
The online music site is a sister service to Mega that is yet to be launched, but is designed for musicians to upload their music and get the royalties whenever their music is played through the service.
“Megabox is still under development,” alleges Dotcom, according to CSO. “It will take at least another six month before that site goes live. I’m a perfectionist and I’m not going to release a product that I’m not 100% sure of. And Megabox still needs some improvements. But it’s going to be an awesome site, it’s definitely going to change the music industry.”
How? By circumventing record labels and putting the ownership back into the hands of artists and content creators, with the wide distribution and user base of the internet. Dotcom boasts that artists using Megabox will keep a “lion’s share” of 90% of the revenue from their songs being played, and it doesn’t take a maths wiz to realise it’s a far more attractive figure offered by major labels, or the streaming services they often license artist’s work to.
If the fundamentals of MegaBox – internet, cloud-based storage similar to those that The Pirate Bay recently proposed – would also mean that in using a loophole in the legal system, the onus is on the user uploading content, rather than Dotcom’s company and administrators in providing the service.
Dotcom has also made noises previously about using the funds from Mega, and from a reverse lawsuit agains the US Government and the same Hollywood studios that indicted his file-sharing website to begin with, over their “unlawful and political destruction of my business,” to construct a new fibre optic cable that will bring free broadband internet to his new New Zealand home.
Last November, Dotcom proposed he’d build a new $NZ 400 million fibre optic cable as part of his Mega service, and allow free use of the increased bandwith to New Zealand internet providers. The cable or any capital for the project have yet to materialise, but given that Dotcom is still facing charges of extradition over an American court hearing to take place in March where he could face up to 20 years jail if convicted; any brownie points he can earn with his surrogate home will go a long way.
The Next Web reports that during the Mega launch, Dotcom says of the issue of his extradition “I want to find a diplomatic solution… the wiser thing to do is start a dialogue,” rather than continue hostilities between the US and New Zealand governments.
The news of the new music streaming service is possibly good news for music lovers, at least that don’t mind how shady their source material is, and bad news for music labels looking to make a profit from their wares – already aggravated by the likes of controversial streaming service Grooveshark that’s looking to cut the labels out with its newly-introduced payment scheme that will see artists earning bank through social media activity.
