8 ms·

Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

161 points by dutchbrit 14y ago

dutchbrit 14y ago
An the new URL: http://me.ga http://me.ga
- bostonvaulter2 14y ago
  Also redirects to http://kim.com/mega/ http://kim.com/mega/
citricsquid 14y ago
Am I missing something? It's just a... landing page? For anyone that can't get through here is the site: http://i.imgur.com/dGSRk.png http://i.imgur.com/dGSRk.png http://i.imgur.com/OQjt9.png http://i.imgur.com/OQjt9.png http://i.imgur.com/JZvWD.png http://i.imgur.com/JZvWD.png http://i.imgur.com/K5Xst.png http://i.imgur.com/K5Xst.png http://i.imgur.com/69pfL.png http://i.imgur.com/69pfL.png
- jz10 14y ago
  Thanks!
javis 14y ago
I think maybe he shouldn't have stuck to the Mega brand. I'm confused to who would subscribe to 'Mega' after the last product called that was raided and everyone lost their data.
- geekam 14y ago
  Or on the other hand, everyone knows its 'that' product with added security?
- citricsquid 14y ago
  I think maybe he shouldn't have stuck to the Mega brand. I think the idea they're using is that the US government took them down before and now they're building their product to be immune to that and so because they've been victims before they know what they're doing and that is why people should trust them. I think.
zinssmeister 14y ago
lame.
- guylhem 14y ago
  That's an interesting 5 letters reply. Does that means you have something to show which might stand the comparison? The guy did it, has a strong brand recognition and people who publicly expressed their sadness that megaupload was gone and their eagerness to give him their business again. Now he is out there to get some. I say good luck to him.
  - zinssmeister 14y ago
    Yeah that's one way of looking at it and I once did so myself. I've seen various projects of Kim Schmitz (aka Dotcom, aka Kimble) since the late 90s and all of them ended up failing because they weren't sustainable in one way or another. But he always came back with something fresh... This time he is trying the same things twice. So my personal opinion: lame.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Do you think that mega ran into trouble the first time because it was lacking substance in some way?
      - zinssmeister 14y ago
        I think mega ran into trouble because it was parked in a grey zone. Also didn't help mega that it was run by someone that in his previous venture ended up getting arrested, deported back to Germany and charged for embezzlement.
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    The issue here isn't that you need to do something better to critique what someone else has done. You don't need to write a book to have an opinion on a book. The issue is that it adds nothing useful to the discussion.
tommaxwelll 14y ago
Kim just misses his money and fame.
- bentlegen 14y ago
  I'd miss my money too, were I in his shoes. Wouldn't you?
  - petitmiam 14y ago
    but he created trendax - the money making machine. I just assumed he had a never ending money supply after that.
spdy 14y ago
Thats a fast-paced comeback. And he will succeed again this time with a lot more knowledge how to game the gang in hollywood. Will be hard for them to even win the case they have put on and at the same time fight him again. And for all who dont believe it TBP is still around too.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "And he will succeed again this time with a lot more knowledge how to game the gang in hollywood." Succeed for himself, though I doubt the venture will last. He reminds me of a lower-classed Donald Trump, in that he's much better at selling his personal brand than he is in operating a business for very long.
ryanpers 14y ago
I was neutral on this guy until I read the wired story, and then I became a fan. He is a self made man (way more so than romney!), he suffers from persistent discrimination (overweight) and he has cycled thru the hero's journey. I have heard a lot of these "major success stories", but they are people who have been put in ideal situations and then they made the best of it. That is just emotionally dead for me. Kim's story is more interesting because it is relevant to ME. I can imagine myself in the same spot, and it overlaps with my own personal history (timewise) a bit too. Ultimately, I believe there is minimal legal differences between youtube in the early days (which was made successful via RAMPANT piracy), and megaupload. Screw the government.
- sanswork 14y ago
  You are skipping over his history of fraud, embezzlement, theft, etc.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - andoriyu 14y ago
    and how he started making even "bigger" air than RIAA and MPAA.
- rscale 14y ago
  He's a career criminal. He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading. He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal and a con man. I find it shocking that so many people are eager to lionize this sociopathic asshole. Screw Kim Dotcom.
  - ryanpers 14y ago
    That was years ago when he was a teenager. Many people went thru an "illegal period", his was just... more successful than most. As for sociopathic, so what? Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths? I find that argument... not compelling. Like it or not, sociopathy appears to be an integral/essential part of human organizations.
thomasvendetta 14y ago
I especially like the DMCA callout on the Hosting Partner's page: Unfortunately we can't work with hosting companies based in the United States. Safe harbour for service providers via the Digital Millenium Copyright Act has been undermined by the Department of Justice with its novel criminal prosecution of Megaupload. It is not safe for cloud storage sites or any business allowing user generated content to be hosted on servers in the United States or on domains like .com / .net. The US government is frequently seizing domains without offering service providers a hearing or due process.
- yuhong 14y ago
  Hopefully this is temporary.
- tzs 14y ago
  That's hilarious. The Safe Harbor works fine for Dropbox, YouTube, and numerous others. That's because they don't have people on staff specifically looking for infringing material in order to reward the up loaders and encourage more infringement, and their responses when they are properly notified of infringing material is to actually deal with it instead of just trying to hide it from the notifier so he'll think it was taken down.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    So far it has not been proven that Megaupload has violated the DMCA, and it looks uncertain whether the cased against them will even survive long enough for the claims to even get prosecuted, so how is that hilarious? Whether or not Megaupload violated the DMCA, the US government have effectively demonstrated that if they think you've violated the right laws, it doesn't matter whether or not the courts agree, as your business will be dead before then.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Obviously it hasn't been proven, because the case hasn't been taken to trial. But the indictment is damning; the DOJ has MegaUpload's emails and lays the case out in Kim & Co's own words. For instance: On or about April 23, 2009, DOTCOM sent an e-mail message to VANDER KOLK, ORTMANN, and BENCKO in which he complained about the deletion of URL links in response to infringement notices from the copyright holders. In the message, DOTCOMstated that “I told you many times not to delete links that are reported in batches of thousands from insignificant sources. I would say that those infringement reports from MEXICO of “14,000” links would fall into that category. And the fact that we lost significant revenue because of it justifies my reaction.” And: * When an outsider complained that MegaVideo's hosting of the Showtime pay-tv series "Dexter" had desynchronized audio/video, instead of taking down "Dexter", Kim Schmitz fired off mail saying that fixing the AV problem was a priority. * Mega employees themselves uploaded copies of major motion pictures to the service, such as Luc Besson's _Taken_. * There are Mega emails, on which Kim is apparently CC'd, in which employees enumerate the specific files uploaded to certain high-performing affiliate members, noting (approvingly) that they include copyrighted movies and TV shows. For instance, one line item in an accounting mail: 100 USD [USERNAME DELETED] 10+ Full popular DVD rips (split files), a few small porn movies, some software with keygenerators (warez) There's a widespread misunderstanding of the DMCA on Hacker News and Reddit, and that misunderstanding goes like this: "to follow the letter of the law, you must somehow be responsive to individual takedown requests from rightsholders". That is in fact not correct; it only captures part of the responsibility of service providers under the DMCA. Another responsibility, clearly spelled out in the DMCA, is that you can't operate a service with knowledge of specific infringing content. You cannot know that Luc Besson's _Taken_ resides on your service at a specific URL and then simply wait for a rightsholder to request its takedown. If you operate your service knowing that there are specific pieces of copyrighted content on your site that you're "getting away with" having because nobody's sent you a takedown, and a prosecutor can show that (for instance, with an email obtained during discovery in which your staff does a line-by-line accounting of a promotional program you ran in which you paid contributors to your site to upload copyrighted material, and in that email you specifically make a case for paying one such prolific uploader more because more of their material is copyrighted), you forfeit safe harbor protections. Finally, and orthogonally, let me just add that while we can't convict Kim Schmitz on the presumption that he is a scumbag fraudster, and the checks and balances in our system of government do require us to dot every 'i' and cross every 't' with regards to chain of custody of evidence, evidentiary standards, and cause for search --- so that if Schmitz escapes his inevitable imprisonment this time, I'll at least be comforted that our legal system takes those issues seriously --- Kim Schmitz gets no such pass in the court of public opinion. The evidence against him in that court is overwhelming. Unless you think the DoJ fabricated his emails, we know he's a crook. You can pretend there's a controversy here, but if you do, my take is you're not allowed to criticize Zynga or evil hedge fund managers and HFTs anymore.
tlrobinson 14y ago
Heh, I misread "Easy Privacy" as "Easy Piracy".
- salmanapk 14y ago
  Haha same here. Cracked me up :P
logn 14y ago
He's soliciting for investors. Isn't that illegal? (Not that he would care)
- arbuge 14y ago
  In the USA it probably would be... he's in New Zealand.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    Didn't stop the USA last time ...
    - tzs 14y ago
      The things he was accused of were illegal in New Zealand also.
      - lmm 14y ago
        Really? I was under the impression NZ didn't have the criminal conspiracy law the US was using. (Copyright infringement is of course illegal in NZ, but that's a civil matter and not what he was supposedly arrested for).
        tptacek 14y ago
        Really. 131 Criminal liability for making or dealing with infringing objects (1) Every person commits an offence against this section who, other than pursuant to a copyright licence,— (a)makes for sale or hire; or (b)imports into New Zealand otherwise than for that person's private and domestic use; or (c)possesses in the course of a business with a view to committing any act infringing the copyright; or (d)in the course of a business,— (i)offers or exposes for sale or hire; or (ii)exhibits in public; or (iii)distributes; or (e)in the course of a business or otherwise, sells or lets for hire; or (f)distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the copyright owner—an object that is, and that the person knows is, an infringing copy of a copyright work. NZ copyright law isn't structured like US copyright law; it recognizes "primary" and "secondary" infringement like our law does, but its criminal law is is broader; for instance, creation and sale of circumvention devices is an offense directly under Section 131 of NZ Copyright Law, not some wacky add-on law like the DMCA. Obviously, most countries don't have exactly the same laws as the US.
temphn 14y ago
It would be very interesting if he decides to use bitcoin or something similar for this.
- pyre 14y ago
  How volatile is the bitcoin right now? For example, what happens when the bitcoin raises 200% vs. the US dollar? Do you change your pricing? What happens if it then drops the next day?
  - mario_sandler 14y ago
    its not that volatile right now, therefore your statement is invalid.
  - kapnobatairza 14y ago
    Bitcoin is a relatively stable asset and currency as far as I can tell. Bitcoin's value in relation to the dollar is a product of demand and supply, like any other currency. However, given that supply is "hard coded" in the algorithm, supply is more or less a constant variable. That leaves demand. Demand is there as long as Bitcoin has transactional value (how many people accept it as a form of payment) and asset value (how attractive it is as a store of value). Bitcoin has price floors as long as it is useful in transactions (for example, as long as online black markets like Silk Road flourish) and as long as Bitcoin "enthusiasts" accept it as an asset. Barring some way for the government to thwart the TOR + Bitcoin combo for making anonymous online transactions, I would think that any volatility in the BTC-USD exchange rate would come from volatility in the value of the dollar over that of BTC.
  - chmod775 14y ago
    History tells us that the US dollar is much more volatile than bitcoin can be. Plus I do not think that Kim will want to have anything to do with that currency.
    - pyre 14y ago
      > History tells us that the US dollar is much > more volatile than bitcoin can be. There have been at least a couple of recent periods where there was a bitcoin 'bubble.' I'm questioning how he as a merchant, would deal with that (if bitcoin was his main transactional currency)? His customers likely are all using a different currency locally, and would have to exchange that currency for bitcoins. For example: Let's say a month of service costs 3 bitcoins, and currently a bitcoins cost 8 rupees (24 rupees/month for service). What happens when the price of the bitcoin rises to 20 rupees / bitcoin? Does the price (in bitcoins) drop? What happens if this significant rise only happens in one market, but not another? What if one 50% of his customer-base experience significant exchange increases, but the other 50% doesn't? It's a curious thing, because almost no one is being paid (salary/wages) in bitcoins, so they all need to exchange the local currency to pay for service. > Plus I do not think that Kim will want to > have anything to do with that currency. I was using the USD as an example. The same comments could apply to whatever the local currency is of his potential customers. [ Also chances are that if the bitcoin is volatile against one currency it's not not necessary stable against all others. ]
Jonovono 14y ago
I am interested to see how this goes. I am also rooting for the new myspace project. If you have not seen that check it out: ( https://new.myspace.com/ https://new.myspace.com/ ). What looks interesting is the ability for the artists to interact with the fans like they would on FB/Twitter on the same medium they could sell their music (I don't think there will be selling of music on the Mega project though). Right now we have FB/Twitter where it is very easy to keep in touch with the artists and build a relationship and maybe find new ones but no real way to sell things that well. Then their is iTunes where you can buy music but no real community aspect. I think bringing them together will be interesting. I could see something like a Kickstarter aspect working as well. Fans doing something like we want to see Kanye and Bieber do a song together. People could then show support etc and help chose what gets made. Ultimately though it has to really help new/unknown artists get started. It's great that Louis CK can sell his stuff online by passing the record companies but that is unrealistic for most people. I system that provides a great community with a great "discovery" aspect could really help this. Fans could be like "I want a song made about blah blah" and some random artist could deliver. Maybe if you are doing a show somewhere you also film it and throw it up on the site for people to watch. Random thoughts. But I hope these provide some exciting opportunities for artists!
- larrybolt 14y ago
  I did not knew about the new myspace project, thanks! I like how they bring "a new dimension" to the whole newsfeed/timeline idea by allowing both vertical (not really, tho switching from one page to another could be seen as vertical scrolling) as horizontal scrolling. Also lovely how nowadays sites and software seem to be getting more simple, clean.. less icons, buttons, modal boxes; and maybe more important, fullscreen use!
trotsky 14y ago
What sane organization would sign up to be a "hosting partner" in this situation? Let's see, most of his last venture's major unpaid creditors are hosting providers, previous hosters spent months after the indictments unable to use their servers and without an ability to bill. Not to mention that he apparently wants quotes with no capex component and requires full built and managed systems including space, power, cooling, data, management and operations on a fixed fee bid before the service launches for what will be impossible to accurately predict growth. Oh, and by the way, he's willing to let you take part of your payment in ad inventory. lol.
- propercoil 14y ago
  many will in eastern europe/russia. U.S is out of the question
- revelation 14y ago
  Uh, they are not being paid because the US government decided to dismantle his business, under authority from laws from (probably) the "prohibibiton", "war on drugs" or "war on terror" eras, all of which humanity could have done without. And they have to keep the systems running because apparently the government can't even provide secure storage of what they claim as evidence.
justindocanto 14y ago
Seeing a lot of css/javascript screw ups on Chrome. Popups and hover effects look pretty 'janky'. Anybody else seeing that?
- majorlazer 14y ago
  Yeah, it really irks me when developers replace an image with another on hover. Just combine the two images on top of one another and use: background-position: top; and on hover use: background-position: bottom; This makes the initial hover smooth with no flash.
pud 14y ago
I can vouch for Kim's positive traits. He also has negative traits, as do we all - but I don't know much about them. However he was a customer of AdBrite (a large ad network I founded around 2000) and I spoke with him via Skype many times around 2002. AdBrite is kinda like AdSense in that you can run our ads on your site and make money. And he was running AdBrite on one of his sites. I don't remember which site of Kim's it was, and I don't remember why we had to kick them out for T&C infraction. Regardless, he didn't like the AdBrite logo (which I paid a lot for) and told me his designers could make a better one. They did, and Kim let me use it for free. AdBrite raised around $40M using the logo Kim & his team designed for us. And I'm grateful. AdBrite recently changed logos again so it's not there now. But here's the original (my designer) http://www.storesonline.com/members/963920/uploaded/adbrite_logo.gif http://www.storesonline.com/members/963920/uploaded/adbrite_... And here's Kim's, that we ended up using for years: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MsUpdWwPgms/UFOcvPMS74I/AAAAAAAAAW4/1q8BUYOvuIs/s400/adbrite-logo.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MsUpdWwPgms/UFOcvPMS74I/AAAAAAAAAW... The differences are subtle but I believe it made a significant improvement to our brand. And regardless if you think Kim is a brilliant entrepreneur or a criminal -- you can't deny that he makes very high quality products that people love to use. There's something we can all learn from that. Thanks for the logo, Kim.
- jyap 14y ago
  The logos are practically the same. Cool story though.
  - mojowo11 14y ago
    The logos were so similar that when I opened them in tabs, I began to question whether the original post was a joke. I'm still not really sure what's going on.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - tux1968 14y ago
      It really must be a mistake or a joke.
chandika 14y ago
accidentally read that as 'easy piracy' vs 'easy privacy' :)
nej 14y ago
Anyone else having trouble entering their email? I keep getting 404 on the POST: {"status":1,"response":{"error":"Unexpected error"}}
ecliptic 14y ago
Why does HN always want to be Kim's forest bride? Do they all live at home? People who actually run businesses don't fetishize this clown.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
wickedbass 14y ago
There is an extra <head> tag in their site, I hope that isn't indicative of their programming talent! :x
Trufa 14y ago
Discussion apart, seriously slick landing page IMHO.
damiankennedy 14y ago
Kiwi here and the rumour is that this new venture breaks his parole so back to the little jail cell with a mouldy mattress for him. We're not fans of people that try and bribe/blackmail our politicians here.
- mattdw 14y ago
  Also a Kiwi here and I think actually most of us are more concerned with the Police and Govt's apparent disregard for the rule and application of law. Kim Dotcom is pretty funny and makes a good case for himself when he's given TV time, but the big story is how much damage the government will take over their buddy-buddy with the MPAA and all the insider dealings they've been up to. Dotcom has exposed a kind of corruption we didn't realise we had.
eupharis 14y ago
Kim's personal vices/virtues aside, this seems like yet another iteration of a while loop that has been running for awhile: 1) A form of piracy exists. 2) Prosecute! 3) A faster, more secure form of piracy has been created!
arrowgunz 14y ago
The email field seems to be broken
- Torgo 14y ago
  It did not work for me in Firefox, but I switched over to Chrome and it then worked.
  - arrowgunz 14y ago
    It doesn't seem to be working on Chrome either for me.
adir1 14y ago
So why would any sane person try his luck with this sketchy company versus Dropbox, which provides same functionality for free already?
- CrankyPants 14y ago
  Dropbox has already demonstrated that they play it fast and loose with user privacy issues. While I use Dropbox for many things, and admire what they've built, we'd do well to be more realistic about it around here.
  - olefoo 14y ago
    I appreciate your skepticism towards DropBox, but what makes you think that Mega is going to be the host-proof sharing nirvana? I'm willing to bet that their initial client will be susceptible to MITB and various key leakages for the first year or two.
    - CrankyPants 14y ago
      Nothing makes me think "Mega is going to be the host-proof sharing nirvana," because I don't. Please, try to respond what people actually say.
ForFreedom 14y ago
I like the design of the website.
- shabble 14y ago
  Single-page app for something that really doesn't need to be? Not even a <noscript> so you're not actually sure if the page loaded or not[1]. Gratuitous animations between slides? Barest hint of content scattered across slides? If I was there for informational purposes, I'd say it was a terrible site. [1] Although I don't really expect people to cater to the miniscule audience that is NoScript/equivalent users[2], it's nice to see at least the tiniest thought towards those who can't/don't have JS. [2] In fact, there are even some tech-focused sites now that actually ask you to whitelist them for js instead of 'please upgrade to Netscape 3+ or IE5'!
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Jesus people. It is possible to acknowledge that Kim is a criminal, think he is interesting, be interested in Mega, find his criminal history abhorrent AND think that raid of Megaupload was wrong and probably illegal, all at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive and there's no reason for this to be an argument. Why do Kim discussions always turn into arguments instead of discussions?
- zobzu 14y ago
  welcome to the internet. you're making way too much sense. :-)
- gadders 14y ago
  Cognitive dissonance [1]. It seems to happen a lot with discussions of Julian Assange as well. i.e. he could be both a "freedom fighter" and a sex offender, and the one person could have both very admirable traits, and abhorrent ones. See also Mike Tyson, Roman Polanski etc etc. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
xSwag 14y ago
Just guessed the domain name, since they won't be using .com or .net anymore: http://me.ga/ http://me.ga/ redirects to that page, I hope that is the domain that they use since its pretty short.
sgt 14y ago
"Multi-centric data warehousing"? I don't think Kim knows what the term Data Warehousing usually means.
- lmm 14y ago
  It's a stupid term, kudos to him for using it in a way that makes more sense.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
I guess it's typical but I've had this idea before. tptacek should stop by with his rant against javascript, client-side encryption. The other trick to making this idea cool? Once you have the wiring hooked up to make Mega look like local storage (even though it's in the browser), you can wire that up to the PeerConnection Data Channel (once it's available) and literally implement peer-to-peer networks in your browser. There are limitations as you can't use aggressive discovery protocols like with a native socket, but it's still tantalizing.

161 points by dutchbrit 14y ago

dutchbrit 14y ago

An the new URL: http://me.ga http://me.ga

bostonvaulter2 14y ago
Also redirects to http://kim.com/mega/ http://kim.com/mega/

citricsquid 14y ago

Am I missing something? It's just a... landing page? For anyone that can't get through here is the site: http://i.imgur.com/dGSRk.png http://i.imgur.com/dGSRk.png http://i.imgur.com/OQjt9.png http://i.imgur.com/OQjt9.png http://i.imgur.com/JZvWD.png http://i.imgur.com/JZvWD.png http://i.imgur.com/K5Xst.png http://i.imgur.com/K5Xst.png http://i.imgur.com/69pfL.png http://i.imgur.com/69pfL.png

jz10 14y ago
Thanks!

javis 14y ago

I think maybe he shouldn't have stuck to the Mega brand. I'm confused to who would subscribe to 'Mega' after the last product called that was raided and everyone lost their data.

geekam 14y ago
Or on the other hand, everyone knows its 'that' product with added security?
citricsquid 14y ago
I think maybe he shouldn't have stuck to the Mega brand. I think the idea they're using is that the US government took them down before and now they're building their product to be immune to that and so because they've been victims before they know what they're doing and that is why people should trust them. I think.

zinssmeister 14y ago

lame.

guylhem 14y ago
That's an interesting 5 letters reply. Does that means you have something to show which might stand the comparison? The guy did it, has a strong brand recognition and people who publicly expressed their sadness that megaupload was gone and their eagerness to give him their business again. Now he is out there to get some. I say good luck to him.
- zinssmeister 14y ago
  Yeah that's one way of looking at it and I once did so myself. I've seen various projects of Kim Schmitz (aka Dotcom, aka Kimble) since the late 90s and all of them ended up failing because they weren't sustainable in one way or another. But he always came back with something fresh... This time he is trying the same things twice. So my personal opinion: lame.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Do you think that mega ran into trouble the first time because it was lacking substance in some way?
    - zinssmeister 14y ago
      I think mega ran into trouble because it was parked in a grey zone. Also didn't help mega that it was run by someone that in his previous venture ended up getting arrested, deported back to Germany and charged for embezzlement.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  The issue here isn't that you need to do something better to critique what someone else has done. You don't need to write a book to have an opinion on a book. The issue is that it adds nothing useful to the discussion.

tommaxwelll 14y ago

Kim just misses his money and fame.

bentlegen 14y ago
I'd miss my money too, were I in his shoes. Wouldn't you?
- petitmiam 14y ago
  but he created trendax - the money making machine. I just assumed he had a never ending money supply after that.

spdy 14y ago

Thats a fast-paced comeback. And he will succeed again this time with a lot more knowledge how to game the gang in hollywood. Will be hard for them to even win the case they have put on and at the same time fight him again. And for all who dont believe it TBP is still around too.

illuminate 14y ago
"And he will succeed again this time with a lot more knowledge how to game the gang in hollywood." Succeed for himself, though I doubt the venture will last. He reminds me of a lower-classed Donald Trump, in that he's much better at selling his personal brand than he is in operating a business for very long.

ryanpers 14y ago

I was neutral on this guy until I read the wired story, and then I became a fan. He is a self made man (way more so than romney!), he suffers from persistent discrimination (overweight) and he has cycled thru the hero's journey. I have heard a lot of these "major success stories", but they are people who have been put in ideal situations and then they made the best of it. That is just emotionally dead for me. Kim's story is more interesting because it is relevant to ME. I can imagine myself in the same spot, and it overlaps with my own personal history (timewise) a bit too. Ultimately, I believe there is minimal legal differences between youtube in the early days (which was made successful via RAMPANT piracy), and megaupload. Screw the government.

sanswork 14y ago
You are skipping over his history of fraud, embezzlement, theft, etc.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- andoriyu 14y ago
  and how he started making even "bigger" air than RIAA and MPAA.
rscale 14y ago
He's a career criminal. He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading. He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal and a con man. I find it shocking that so many people are eager to lionize this sociopathic asshole. Screw Kim Dotcom.
- ryanpers 14y ago
  That was years ago when he was a teenager. Many people went thru an "illegal period", his was just... more successful than most. As for sociopathic, so what? Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths? I find that argument... not compelling. Like it or not, sociopathy appears to be an integral/essential part of human organizations.

thomasvendetta 14y ago

I especially like the DMCA callout on the Hosting Partner's page: Unfortunately we can't work with hosting companies based in the United States. Safe harbour for service providers via the Digital Millenium Copyright Act has been undermined by the Department of Justice with its novel criminal prosecution of Megaupload. It is not safe for cloud storage sites or any business allowing user generated content to be hosted on servers in the United States or on domains like .com / .net. The US government is frequently seizing domains without offering service providers a hearing or due process.

yuhong 14y ago
Hopefully this is temporary.
tzs 14y ago
That's hilarious. The Safe Harbor works fine for Dropbox, YouTube, and numerous others. That's because they don't have people on staff specifically looking for infringing material in order to reward the up loaders and encourage more infringement, and their responses when they are properly notified of infringing material is to actually deal with it instead of just trying to hide it from the notifier so he'll think it was taken down.
- vidarh 14y ago
  So far it has not been proven that Megaupload has violated the DMCA, and it looks uncertain whether the cased against them will even survive long enough for the claims to even get prosecuted, so how is that hilarious? Whether or not Megaupload violated the DMCA, the US government have effectively demonstrated that if they think you've violated the right laws, it doesn't matter whether or not the courts agree, as your business will be dead before then.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Obviously it hasn't been proven, because the case hasn't been taken to trial. But the indictment is damning; the DOJ has MegaUpload's emails and lays the case out in Kim & Co's own words. For instance: On or about April 23, 2009, DOTCOM sent an e-mail message to VANDER KOLK, ORTMANN, and BENCKO in which he complained about the deletion of URL links in response to infringement notices from the copyright holders. In the message, DOTCOMstated that “I told you many times not to delete links that are reported in batches of thousands from insignificant sources. I would say that those infringement reports from MEXICO of “14,000” links would fall into that category. And the fact that we lost significant revenue because of it justifies my reaction.” And: * When an outsider complained that MegaVideo's hosting of the Showtime pay-tv series "Dexter" had desynchronized audio/video, instead of taking down "Dexter", Kim Schmitz fired off mail saying that fixing the AV problem was a priority. * Mega employees themselves uploaded copies of major motion pictures to the service, such as Luc Besson's _Taken_. * There are Mega emails, on which Kim is apparently CC'd, in which employees enumerate the specific files uploaded to certain high-performing affiliate members, noting (approvingly) that they include copyrighted movies and TV shows. For instance, one line item in an accounting mail: 100 USD [USERNAME DELETED] 10+ Full popular DVD rips (split files), a few small porn movies, some software with keygenerators (warez) There's a widespread misunderstanding of the DMCA on Hacker News and Reddit, and that misunderstanding goes like this: "to follow the letter of the law, you must somehow be responsive to individual takedown requests from rightsholders". That is in fact not correct; it only captures part of the responsibility of service providers under the DMCA. Another responsibility, clearly spelled out in the DMCA, is that you can't operate a service with knowledge of specific infringing content. You cannot know that Luc Besson's _Taken_ resides on your service at a specific URL and then simply wait for a rightsholder to request its takedown. If you operate your service knowing that there are specific pieces of copyrighted content on your site that you're "getting away with" having because nobody's sent you a takedown, and a prosecutor can show that (for instance, with an email obtained during discovery in which your staff does a line-by-line accounting of a promotional program you ran in which you paid contributors to your site to upload copyrighted material, and in that email you specifically make a case for paying one such prolific uploader more because more of their material is copyrighted), you forfeit safe harbor protections. Finally, and orthogonally, let me just add that while we can't convict Kim Schmitz on the presumption that he is a scumbag fraudster, and the checks and balances in our system of government do require us to dot every 'i' and cross every 't' with regards to chain of custody of evidence, evidentiary standards, and cause for search --- so that if Schmitz escapes his inevitable imprisonment this time, I'll at least be comforted that our legal system takes those issues seriously --- Kim Schmitz gets no such pass in the court of public opinion. The evidence against him in that court is overwhelming. Unless you think the DoJ fabricated his emails, we know he's a crook. You can pretend there's a controversy here, but if you do, my take is you're not allowed to criticize Zynga or evil hedge fund managers and HFTs anymore.

tlrobinson 14y ago

Heh, I misread "Easy Privacy" as "Easy Piracy".

salmanapk 14y ago
Haha same here. Cracked me up :P

logn 14y ago

He's soliciting for investors. Isn't that illegal? (Not that he would care)

arbuge 14y ago
In the USA it probably would be... he's in New Zealand.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  Didn't stop the USA last time ...
  - tzs 14y ago
    The things he was accused of were illegal in New Zealand also.
    - lmm 14y ago
      Really? I was under the impression NZ didn't have the criminal conspiracy law the US was using. (Copyright infringement is of course illegal in NZ, but that's a civil matter and not what he was supposedly arrested for).
      - tptacek 14y ago
        Really. 131 Criminal liability for making or dealing with infringing objects (1) Every person commits an offence against this section who, other than pursuant to a copyright licence,— (a)makes for sale or hire; or (b)imports into New Zealand otherwise than for that person's private and domestic use; or (c)possesses in the course of a business with a view to committing any act infringing the copyright; or (d)in the course of a business,— (i)offers or exposes for sale or hire; or (ii)exhibits in public; or (iii)distributes; or (e)in the course of a business or otherwise, sells or lets for hire; or (f)distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the copyright owner—an object that is, and that the person knows is, an infringing copy of a copyright work. NZ copyright law isn't structured like US copyright law; it recognizes "primary" and "secondary" infringement like our law does, but its criminal law is is broader; for instance, creation and sale of circumvention devices is an offense directly under Section 131 of NZ Copyright Law, not some wacky add-on law like the DMCA. Obviously, most countries don't have exactly the same laws as the US.

temphn 14y ago

It would be very interesting if he decides to use bitcoin or something similar for this.

pyre 14y ago
How volatile is the bitcoin right now? For example, what happens when the bitcoin raises 200% vs. the US dollar? Do you change your pricing? What happens if it then drops the next day?
- mario_sandler 14y ago
  its not that volatile right now, therefore your statement is invalid.
- kapnobatairza 14y ago
  Bitcoin is a relatively stable asset and currency as far as I can tell. Bitcoin's value in relation to the dollar is a product of demand and supply, like any other currency. However, given that supply is "hard coded" in the algorithm, supply is more or less a constant variable. That leaves demand. Demand is there as long as Bitcoin has transactional value (how many people accept it as a form of payment) and asset value (how attractive it is as a store of value). Bitcoin has price floors as long as it is useful in transactions (for example, as long as online black markets like Silk Road flourish) and as long as Bitcoin "enthusiasts" accept it as an asset. Barring some way for the government to thwart the TOR + Bitcoin combo for making anonymous online transactions, I would think that any volatility in the BTC-USD exchange rate would come from volatility in the value of the dollar over that of BTC.
- chmod775 14y ago
  History tells us that the US dollar is much more volatile than bitcoin can be. Plus I do not think that Kim will want to have anything to do with that currency.
  - pyre 14y ago
    > History tells us that the US dollar is much > more volatile than bitcoin can be. There have been at least a couple of recent periods where there was a bitcoin 'bubble.' I'm questioning how he as a merchant, would deal with that (if bitcoin was his main transactional currency)? His customers likely are all using a different currency locally, and would have to exchange that currency for bitcoins. For example: Let's say a month of service costs 3 bitcoins, and currently a bitcoins cost 8 rupees (24 rupees/month for service). What happens when the price of the bitcoin rises to 20 rupees / bitcoin? Does the price (in bitcoins) drop? What happens if this significant rise only happens in one market, but not another? What if one 50% of his customer-base experience significant exchange increases, but the other 50% doesn't? It's a curious thing, because almost no one is being paid (salary/wages) in bitcoins, so they all need to exchange the local currency to pay for service. > Plus I do not think that Kim will want to > have anything to do with that currency. I was using the USD as an example. The same comments could apply to whatever the local currency is of his potential customers. [ Also chances are that if the bitcoin is volatile against one currency it's not not necessary stable against all others. ]

Jonovono 14y ago

I am interested to see how this goes. I am also rooting for the new myspace project. If you have not seen that check it out: ( https://new.myspace.com/ https://new.myspace.com/ ). What looks interesting is the ability for the artists to interact with the fans like they would on FB/Twitter on the same medium they could sell their music (I don't think there will be selling of music on the Mega project though). Right now we have FB/Twitter where it is very easy to keep in touch with the artists and build a relationship and maybe find new ones but no real way to sell things that well. Then their is iTunes where you can buy music but no real community aspect. I think bringing them together will be interesting. I could see something like a Kickstarter aspect working as well. Fans doing something like we want to see Kanye and Bieber do a song together. People could then show support etc and help chose what gets made. Ultimately though it has to really help new/unknown artists get started. It's great that Louis CK can sell his stuff online by passing the record companies but that is unrealistic for most people. I system that provides a great community with a great "discovery" aspect could really help this. Fans could be like "I want a song made about blah blah" and some random artist could deliver. Maybe if you are doing a show somewhere you also film it and throw it up on the site for people to watch. Random thoughts. But I hope these provide some exciting opportunities for artists!

larrybolt 14y ago
I did not knew about the new myspace project, thanks! I like how they bring "a new dimension" to the whole newsfeed/timeline idea by allowing both vertical (not really, tho switching from one page to another could be seen as vertical scrolling) as horizontal scrolling. Also lovely how nowadays sites and software seem to be getting more simple, clean.. less icons, buttons, modal boxes; and maybe more important, fullscreen use!

trotsky 14y ago

What sane organization would sign up to be a "hosting partner" in this situation? Let's see, most of his last venture's major unpaid creditors are hosting providers, previous hosters spent months after the indictments unable to use their servers and without an ability to bill. Not to mention that he apparently wants quotes with no capex component and requires full built and managed systems including space, power, cooling, data, management and operations on a fixed fee bid before the service launches for what will be impossible to accurately predict growth. Oh, and by the way, he's willing to let you take part of your payment in ad inventory. lol.

propercoil 14y ago
many will in eastern europe/russia. U.S is out of the question
revelation 14y ago
Uh, they are not being paid because the US government decided to dismantle his business, under authority from laws from (probably) the "prohibibiton", "war on drugs" or "war on terror" eras, all of which humanity could have done without. And they have to keep the systems running because apparently the government can't even provide secure storage of what they claim as evidence.

justindocanto 14y ago

Seeing a lot of css/javascript screw ups on Chrome. Popups and hover effects look pretty 'janky'. Anybody else seeing that?

majorlazer 14y ago
Yeah, it really irks me when developers replace an image with another on hover. Just combine the two images on top of one another and use: background-position: top; and on hover use: background-position: bottom; This makes the initial hover smooth with no flash.

pud 14y ago

I can vouch for Kim's positive traits. He also has negative traits, as do we all - but I don't know much about them. However he was a customer of AdBrite (a large ad network I founded around 2000) and I spoke with him via Skype many times around 2002. AdBrite is kinda like AdSense in that you can run our ads on your site and make money. And he was running AdBrite on one of his sites. I don't remember which site of Kim's it was, and I don't remember why we had to kick them out for T&C infraction. Regardless, he didn't like the AdBrite logo (which I paid a lot for) and told me his designers could make a better one. They did, and Kim let me use it for free. AdBrite raised around $40M using the logo Kim & his team designed for us. And I'm grateful. AdBrite recently changed logos again so it's not there now. But here's the original (my designer) http://www.storesonline.com/members/963920/uploaded/adbrite_logo.gif http://www.storesonline.com/members/963920/uploaded/adbrite_... And here's Kim's, that we ended up using for years: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MsUpdWwPgms/UFOcvPMS74I/AAAAAAAAAW4/1q8BUYOvuIs/s400/adbrite-logo.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MsUpdWwPgms/UFOcvPMS74I/AAAAAAAAAW... The differences are subtle but I believe it made a significant improvement to our brand. And regardless if you think Kim is a brilliant entrepreneur or a criminal -- you can't deny that he makes very high quality products that people love to use. There's something we can all learn from that. Thanks for the logo, Kim.

jyap 14y ago
The logos are practically the same. Cool story though.
- mojowo11 14y ago
  The logos were so similar that when I opened them in tabs, I began to question whether the original post was a joke. I'm still not really sure what's going on.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - tux1968 14y ago
    It really must be a mistake or a joke.

chandika 14y ago

accidentally read that as 'easy piracy' vs 'easy privacy' :)

nej 14y ago

Anyone else having trouble entering their email? I keep getting 404 on the POST: {"status":1,"response":{"error":"Unexpected error"}}

ecliptic 14y ago

Why does HN always want to be Kim's forest bride? Do they all live at home? People who actually run businesses don't fetishize this clown.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

wickedbass 14y ago

There is an extra <head> tag in their site, I hope that isn't indicative of their programming talent! :x

Trufa 14y ago

Discussion apart, seriously slick landing page IMHO.

damiankennedy 14y ago

Kiwi here and the rumour is that this new venture breaks his parole so back to the little jail cell with a mouldy mattress for him. We're not fans of people that try and bribe/blackmail our politicians here.

mattdw 14y ago
Also a Kiwi here and I think actually most of us are more concerned with the Police and Govt's apparent disregard for the rule and application of law. Kim Dotcom is pretty funny and makes a good case for himself when he's given TV time, but the big story is how much damage the government will take over their buddy-buddy with the MPAA and all the insider dealings they've been up to. Dotcom has exposed a kind of corruption we didn't realise we had.

eupharis 14y ago

Kim's personal vices/virtues aside, this seems like yet another iteration of a while loop that has been running for awhile: 1) A form of piracy exists. 2) Prosecute! 3) A faster, more secure form of piracy has been created!

arrowgunz 14y ago

The email field seems to be broken

Torgo 14y ago
It did not work for me in Firefox, but I switched over to Chrome and it then worked.
- arrowgunz 14y ago
  It doesn't seem to be working on Chrome either for me.

adir1 14y ago

So why would any sane person try his luck with this sketchy company versus Dropbox, which provides same functionality for free already?

CrankyPants 14y ago
Dropbox has already demonstrated that they play it fast and loose with user privacy issues. While I use Dropbox for many things, and admire what they've built, we'd do well to be more realistic about it around here.
- olefoo 14y ago
  I appreciate your skepticism towards DropBox, but what makes you think that Mega is going to be the host-proof sharing nirvana? I'm willing to bet that their initial client will be susceptible to MITB and various key leakages for the first year or two.
  - CrankyPants 14y ago
    Nothing makes me think "Mega is going to be the host-proof sharing nirvana," because I don't. Please, try to respond what people actually say.

ForFreedom 14y ago

I like the design of the website.

shabble 14y ago
Single-page app for something that really doesn't need to be? Not even a <noscript> so you're not actually sure if the page loaded or not[1]. Gratuitous animations between slides? Barest hint of content scattered across slides? If I was there for informational purposes, I'd say it was a terrible site. [1] Although I don't really expect people to cater to the miniscule audience that is NoScript/equivalent users[2], it's nice to see at least the tiniest thought towards those who can't/don't have JS. [2] In fact, there are even some tech-focused sites now that actually ask you to whitelist them for js instead of 'please upgrade to Netscape 3+ or IE5'!

drivebyacct2 14y ago

Jesus people. It is possible to acknowledge that Kim is a criminal, think he is interesting, be interested in Mega, find his criminal history abhorrent AND think that raid of Megaupload was wrong and probably illegal, all at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive and there's no reason for this to be an argument. Why do Kim discussions always turn into arguments instead of discussions?

zobzu 14y ago
welcome to the internet. you're making way too much sense. :-)
gadders 14y ago
Cognitive dissonance [1]. It seems to happen a lot with discussions of Julian Assange as well. i.e. he could be both a "freedom fighter" and a sex offender, and the one person could have both very admirable traits, and abhorrent ones. See also Mike Tyson, Roman Polanski etc etc. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

xSwag 14y ago

Just guessed the domain name, since they won't be using .com or .net anymore: http://me.ga/ http://me.ga/ redirects to that page, I hope that is the domain that they use since its pretty short.

sgt 14y ago

"Multi-centric data warehousing"? I don't think Kim knows what the term Data Warehousing usually means.

lmm 14y ago
It's a stupid term, kudos to him for using it in a way that makes more sense.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

I guess it's typical but I've had this idea before. tptacek should stop by with his rant against javascript, client-side encryption. The other trick to making this idea cool? Once you have the wiring hooked up to make Mega look like local storage (even though it's in the browser), you can wire that up to the PeerConnection Data Channel (once it's available) and literally implement peer-to-peer networks in your browser. There are limitations as you can't use aggressive discovery protocols like with a native socket, but it's still tantalizing.