12 ms·

The copyright industry should brace itself: the Kim Dotcom saga isn't over

91 points by lukashed 13y ago

angersock 13y ago
"Big rarely means agile. Even so, there remains in New Zealand a fast-moving fat man who is causing an immense amount of trouble to anyone who ever troubled him." Good opener.
- devinj 13y ago
  I usually get irritated at unnecessary references to a person's size, but I think the closer made it all worth it.
- GigabyteCoin 13y ago
  I found it a little out of place to mention the subject's size in this article. He's going to beat the copyright industry with his brains, not his girth.
  - mahyarm 13y ago
    I think Kim uses that joke punchline himself anyway, I don't think he is very sensitive about it. He probably knows it contributes to his PR branding anyway as a unique character.
- pacofvf 13y ago
  > Kim Dotcom, described by Crispin Hunt as a 'chubby Che Guevara'.
moomin 13y ago
Schmitz is a deeply unpleasant man. It takes a fair amount of effort to make him look like a good guy, but it looks like the MPAA and the FBI are putting the hours in.
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  Why is he an unpleasant man?
  - fein 13y ago
    Hopefully this explains some of it: http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/kimble/ http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/kimble/ There's a lot of history that gave kimble his stigma.
    - pantalaimon 13y ago
      What I find fascinating is how he is always quick to get back on his feet - and he isn't known for having a frugal lifestyle, yet there is always money. (A hilarious take on this are his 'Kimble goes to Monaco' movies (German) [1][2], probably one of the most easily accessible stunts he did back in the days. His Usenet trolling [3] eclipses 4chan and gives an interesting insight in his mind…) I probably wouldn't like him, but I'm quite fascinated by his lifestyle and ego that at least matches his size. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZBZV8hFb4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZBZV8hFb4 [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuGrK-ZFA8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuGrK-ZFA8 [3] http://babsi.de/KIMBLE.txt http://babsi.de/KIMBLE.txt
- Crito 13y ago
  "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -H. L. Mencken It is a well known problem, but one that you must deal with if you are interested in defending principles that you stand for. The ACLU has defended the KKK in the past. Most recently: https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-em-defends-kkks-right-free-speech https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-em-defends-kkks-right-...
  - moomin 13y ago
    We can add weev to the list of people I'd much rather not have to defend.
toufka 13y ago
Woah - bold plan Mr. Mega.Com: >Dotcom will launch Baboom! next year... It aims to directly reward artists by paying them when users listen to the songs for free. The price for downloading free music is that users install the "MegaKey", a piece of software which strips out embedded online advertisements in favour of those sold by Dotcom.
- ThomPete 13y ago
  A friend of mine tried to do this with a browser plugin. He replaced ads for profit with ads for "good". The newspapers obviously got pissed :)
- seniorsassycat 13y ago
  What is the legal precedent for this? Adblock has been able to fly under the radar because it is used by people who sought out a way to block ads, a minority of internet users. MegaKey replaces ads (something that is more likely to piss off advertisers more than removing ads) as the 'cost' of downloading free music, something many consumers are interested in.
  - drcube 13y ago
    Why would this be a legal issue at all? Can't I do what I want to the software on my own machine and with my own network connection, so long as I abide by the software license terms and the contract with my ISP? Certainly I can't be compelled to accept whatever unwanted packets someone throws at me just because that someone based their business model on the practice, right?
    - Widdershin 13y ago
      Do we give websites the right to serve us ads in their ToS? That seems like the only blatant legal issue I can think of.
      - Karunamon 13y ago
        Seems like how you define "serve". Good luck enforcing that, though.
xzel 13y ago
I would say this article was surprising well written for a tech piece for the Guardian, though, I think it could have been a little deeper. Love (do people love him?) or hate Dotcom, he is an interesting man. Aside from a heart attack, I seem him being a pain in side of the music industry for years to come.
bhewes 13y ago
If anything this is going to make copyright law more efficient. If one man can cause so much havoc what happens when a few people that own a ton of copyrighted work wise up and use the same tech?
leeoniya 13y ago
very similar to the Pirate Bay guys, just seem to keep on truckin'
grecy 13y ago
> Domestically, Dotcom has caused carnage. A government minister has resigned and is facing charges of not declaring political donations made by Dotcom. Prime minister John Key has had to apologise because an intelligence agency for which he was personally responsible was exposed as illegally spying on Dotcom. The police were embarrassed when it emerged their raid, using an anti-terrorist strike force, was carried out unlawfully It would be great to see these kinds of repercussions in America when the government oversteps it's bounds.
- earbitscom 13y ago
  Yes, and equally great if criminals got convicted instead of awarded damages.
  - cLeEOGPw 13y ago
    What was his crime? Bribery?
    - earbitscom 13y ago
      Sort of, yes. He incentivized users to upload popular content for credit on their service knowing full well that the popular content was generally copyrighted. There is a legal difference between letting users upload files for storage, or files they own for sharing, then trying to squash the copyrighted material you do get, vs actively incentivizing users to upload infringing material and then taking it down while you pay the next guy to upload it again.
      - makomk 13y ago
        Not really. MegaUpload's ToS said that they wouldn't pay out rewards to people who uploaded pirated content, and they actually enforced it - probably because it cut their costs by quite a bit, but they did enforce it. This was, from what I recall, fairly well known at the time amongst people who'd have otherwise considered uploading pirated content for profit.
JumpCrisscross 13y ago
> Dotcom built Mega so it was technically impossible for anyone, including the site’s operators, to know what content users had stored. It means one result of the FBI’s action is the creation of a rogue website which exists outside the intrusive surveillance technology exposed by Snowden. Are these claims accurate?
- anon4 13y ago
  I think they might be if you're outside the US. That is, the NSA monitor all communication within the US, so a US citizen uploading a file to MEGA would be recorded. A non-US citizen uploading a file to Google Drive would be recorded. But a non-US citizen uploading a file to MEGA would not be recorded most of the time, unless the NSA happen to be listening in on the right underground optical cables that day. The claim is not completely false.
  - pantalaimon 13y ago
    Actually, the file is encrypted on the client side using JavaScript, so even the NSA listening wouldn't see it's content.
    - beagle3 13y ago
      ... unless the NSA has already trojaned their computer[0] or is doing an MITM attack. [0] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/quantum-of-pwnness-how-nsa-and-gchq-hacked-opec-and-others/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/quantu...
- jmillikin 13y ago
  When I go to Mega and download a file, the URL includes the decryption key. I am not asked for any additional information. That means anyone who knows the URL of that file can obtain its contents. Every request sent to Mega to download a file goes to their servers, which means that they control the code served to your browser. At any time, they could change that code to send them logs of which URLs you request from their service. Claims that Mega can't access the content of your files are true in only the most superficial sense. If you require secure file storage, Mega is an inappropriate solution.
downer96 13y ago
Time to wade through all the forum slide and astro turf of another two minute hate. Blah blah blah, he's fat. Blah blah blah, music thief. Blah blah blah, copyright law. Okay. Yeah, we get it. That's great. We get it. The fat man has a website, and it's very bad. He's a fat, ugly, stinky man. Boo hoo! Make him go away! I'm still not clear on what it is about his website, and all the implicit data transfer it's responsible for, that's so radically different from any other website that hosts massive amounts of any data I want, shared with the world. Flickr, for example, let's me share Terabytes of data, if I should choose to do so. Why isn't flickr villified like some genocidal dictator?
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  > Flickr, for example, let's me share Terabytes of data, if I should choose to do so. Why isn't flickr villified like some genocidal dictator? Mostly because movie studios have more lobbyists and PR flacks than still photographers. Also, Hollywood does vilify the various other websites. YouTube is an evil pirate website which Viacom has had to sue to vindicate its rights, didn't you know? And a couple of YouTube founders watched a Hollywood movie someone uploaded to YouTube that one time, so therefore Google should have to shut down YouTube and pay a billion dollars.
- Malstrond 13y ago
  What is your counter-argument to the fact that he turned "on us" in the past when he gave all information on users of the House of Coolness BBS to the authorities, the lawyer Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth, and just about anyone who would pay? How can "we" be sure he won't just cave in again?
  - downer96 13y ago
    I fail to see the difference between your complaint and the reality of all large tech companies, as we now know them to be. Secret agreements for wire taps and traffic analysis. National security letters and eavesdropping. Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft. All of them. I say again: Why is this guy more evil than anyone else? Why is he worse than, say, Steve Ballmer? Why is he smeared, but other corporate parasites, not so much?
earbitscom 13y ago
Two massive problems with this plan. Next to no artists own the rights to their music. So, there will be no significant catalog on this service unless people falsely claim to be the rights holder (as they do on Grooveshark) and upload the content under DMCA, then start collecting fraudulent checks for the material. But the main problem is, the kinds of people who will install garbage on their computer in order to get free music are already getting it through Pirate Bay, etc. If I care enough about getting it "legally" through this service, wouldn't I have a problem ripping off the other companies whose sites I browse that depend on the ad revenue I'm now depriving them of? "Hey music lovers - make sure your favorite artists get some hard earned money from their music by taking it away from all those writers, game makers and other people whose products you use!"
- earbitscom 13y ago
  To that point, anybody who works for an ad-supported web business ought to realize this is a plan to rip them off by someone who really just cannot figure out how to make money without taking it from others.
  - Guthur 13y ago
    From my understanding the only party that can make money without taking it from others are governments, though they do take as well.
    - earbitscom 13y ago
      Exchanging value is different than taking value. What is this guy giving to the websites whose ads he's replacing?
1010011010 13y ago
Copyright should be rolled back to 4 years, no renewal, retroactively.
rayiner 13y ago
Referencing some "copyright industry" is like saying that farmers are part of some "private land industry." Its a legal protection that's available to everyone, not just one industry. Its also a legal protection that is more morally justifiable than private land, seeing as it protects original works of creation rather than (in the U.S., anyway) land stolen from native Americans (which in any case is a product of nature).
- letstryagain 13y ago
  You are correct but I think everyone understands that they mean the RIAA / MPAA in this context.
- bad_user 13y ago
  > It protects original works of creation Disney.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Disney paid $210MM to produce _Brave_, which money went not only to creatives, animators, and movie production types, but also to software developers, testers, devops teams, and network administrators.
    - icambron 13y ago
      I agree that Disney should receive copyright protection on its new works. My complaint (and I assume the parent's) is the part where they keep that copyright indefinitely through retroactive extensions. It's not supposed to be a permanent rent, regardless of what they do with the money.
    - Peaker 13y ago
      And nobody is now allowed to create any derivative work to benefit society for the next ~200 years (or perpetually, if Disney has their way). Ironic, since virtually all of Disney's works are based on public domain works that they themselves would be banned from using if their bought laws had existed then.
Guthur 13y ago
For me the pertinent part of this and related stories is that the governments will undertake any action no matter how abhorrent at the beckoning of whatever lobby dollars come their way. That is the real criminality; text book protection racketeering. Whether or not what Kim is doing is right or wrong, or if he is a nice person or not is a red herring and is used to deflect people away from the real issue. This article had so many character assassination elements I would not consider it impartial journalism at all.
criley2 13y ago
Kim's story is interesting and I enjoyed that part of the article but I think the analysis of the music industry and Kim's new venture is very wrong. Firstly: his monetization strategy is a browser extension that strips ads out of sites and places his own. This is appalling and I'm shocked the Guardian, a site that undoubtedly relies on internet advertising, doesn't realize that his monetization strategy would prevent even them from monetizing users who used both services. Getting past the grossly immoral monetization, the article casts the music industry as, once again, some unchanging monolith that refuses to change in light of modern ideas. Last time I checked, I can buy mp3's one by one, without DRM, and load them on any device I want, from any number of online stores. Last time I checked, I can use Spotify or another service and listen to the vast majority of popular music free with ads, or for $5/mo. I don't get it, I can go to bandcamp or soundcloud right now and see thousands of indies who aren't signing labels and who are putting their music out there, selling it and giving it away. It's not 2001 like that article desperately pretends, and our music reality is not what it was. (And if they think Kim or any web music site can upend the entertainment business of nationally popular celebrity/artists, then I charge that they don't even understand the basics of why it's successful).
- erikpukinskis 13y ago
  I respect your beliefs, but I disagree that it is immoral to give people a tool that swaps ads for your own. It's not nice but I think once you send someone some bits, you give up any claim to control what they do with them in the privacy of their own home. Even if they swap out the ads. In fact I would argue using physical violence (police) to enforce what you deem to be "proper private use" of distributed bits is immoral.

91 points by lukashed 13y ago

"Big rarely means agile. Even so, there remains in New Zealand a fast-moving fat man who is causing an immense amount of trouble to anyone who ever troubled him." Good opener.

devinj 13y ago
I usually get irritated at unnecessary references to a person's size, but I think the closer made it all worth it.
GigabyteCoin 13y ago
I found it a little out of place to mention the subject's size in this article. He's going to beat the copyright industry with his brains, not his girth.
- mahyarm 13y ago
  I think Kim uses that joke punchline himself anyway, I don't think he is very sensitive about it. He probably knows it contributes to his PR branding anyway as a unique character.
pacofvf 13y ago
> Kim Dotcom, described by Crispin Hunt as a 'chubby Che Guevara'.

moomin 13y ago

Schmitz is a deeply unpleasant man. It takes a fair amount of effort to make him look like a good guy, but it looks like the MPAA and the FBI are putting the hours in.

rfnslyr 13y ago
Why is he an unpleasant man?
- fein 13y ago
  Hopefully this explains some of it: http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/kimble/ http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/kimble/ There's a lot of history that gave kimble his stigma.
  - pantalaimon 13y ago
    What I find fascinating is how he is always quick to get back on his feet - and he isn't known for having a frugal lifestyle, yet there is always money. (A hilarious take on this are his 'Kimble goes to Monaco' movies (German) [1][2], probably one of the most easily accessible stunts he did back in the days. His Usenet trolling [3] eclipses 4chan and gives an interesting insight in his mind…) I probably wouldn't like him, but I'm quite fascinated by his lifestyle and ego that at least matches his size. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZBZV8hFb4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZBZV8hFb4 [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuGrK-ZFA8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuGrK-ZFA8 [3] http://babsi.de/KIMBLE.txt http://babsi.de/KIMBLE.txt
Crito 13y ago
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -H. L. Mencken It is a well known problem, but one that you must deal with if you are interested in defending principles that you stand for. The ACLU has defended the KKK in the past. Most recently: https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-em-defends-kkks-right-free-speech https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-em-defends-kkks-right-...
- moomin 13y ago
  We can add weev to the list of people I'd much rather not have to defend.

toufka 13y ago

Woah - bold plan Mr. Mega.Com: >Dotcom will launch Baboom! next year... It aims to directly reward artists by paying them when users listen to the songs for free. The price for downloading free music is that users install the "MegaKey", a piece of software which strips out embedded online advertisements in favour of those sold by Dotcom.

ThomPete 13y ago
A friend of mine tried to do this with a browser plugin. He replaced ads for profit with ads for "good". The newspapers obviously got pissed :)
seniorsassycat 13y ago
What is the legal precedent for this? Adblock has been able to fly under the radar because it is used by people who sought out a way to block ads, a minority of internet users. MegaKey replaces ads (something that is more likely to piss off advertisers more than removing ads) as the 'cost' of downloading free music, something many consumers are interested in.
- drcube 13y ago
  Why would this be a legal issue at all? Can't I do what I want to the software on my own machine and with my own network connection, so long as I abide by the software license terms and the contract with my ISP? Certainly I can't be compelled to accept whatever unwanted packets someone throws at me just because that someone based their business model on the practice, right?
  - Widdershin 13y ago
    Do we give websites the right to serve us ads in their ToS? That seems like the only blatant legal issue I can think of.
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      Seems like how you define "serve". Good luck enforcing that, though.

xzel 13y ago

I would say this article was surprising well written for a tech piece for the Guardian, though, I think it could have been a little deeper. Love (do people love him?) or hate Dotcom, he is an interesting man. Aside from a heart attack, I seem him being a pain in side of the music industry for years to come.

bhewes 13y ago

If anything this is going to make copyright law more efficient. If one man can cause so much havoc what happens when a few people that own a ton of copyrighted work wise up and use the same tech?

leeoniya 13y ago

very similar to the Pirate Bay guys, just seem to keep on truckin'

grecy 13y ago

> Domestically, Dotcom has caused carnage. A government minister has resigned and is facing charges of not declaring political donations made by Dotcom. Prime minister John Key has had to apologise because an intelligence agency for which he was personally responsible was exposed as illegally spying on Dotcom. The police were embarrassed when it emerged their raid, using an anti-terrorist strike force, was carried out unlawfully It would be great to see these kinds of repercussions in America when the government oversteps it's bounds.

earbitscom 13y ago
Yes, and equally great if criminals got convicted instead of awarded damages.
- cLeEOGPw 13y ago
  What was his crime? Bribery?
  - earbitscom 13y ago
    Sort of, yes. He incentivized users to upload popular content for credit on their service knowing full well that the popular content was generally copyrighted. There is a legal difference between letting users upload files for storage, or files they own for sharing, then trying to squash the copyrighted material you do get, vs actively incentivizing users to upload infringing material and then taking it down while you pay the next guy to upload it again.
    - makomk 13y ago
      Not really. MegaUpload's ToS said that they wouldn't pay out rewards to people who uploaded pirated content, and they actually enforced it - probably because it cut their costs by quite a bit, but they did enforce it. This was, from what I recall, fairly well known at the time amongst people who'd have otherwise considered uploading pirated content for profit.

JumpCrisscross 13y ago

> Dotcom built Mega so it was technically impossible for anyone, including the site’s operators, to know what content users had stored. It means one result of the FBI’s action is the creation of a rogue website which exists outside the intrusive surveillance technology exposed by Snowden. Are these claims accurate?

anon4 13y ago
I think they might be if you're outside the US. That is, the NSA monitor all communication within the US, so a US citizen uploading a file to MEGA would be recorded. A non-US citizen uploading a file to Google Drive would be recorded. But a non-US citizen uploading a file to MEGA would not be recorded most of the time, unless the NSA happen to be listening in on the right underground optical cables that day. The claim is not completely false.
- pantalaimon 13y ago
  Actually, the file is encrypted on the client side using JavaScript, so even the NSA listening wouldn't see it's content.
  - beagle3 13y ago
    ... unless the NSA has already trojaned their computer[0] or is doing an MITM attack. [0] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/quantum-of-pwnness-how-nsa-and-gchq-hacked-opec-and-others/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/quantu...
jmillikin 13y ago
When I go to Mega and download a file, the URL includes the decryption key. I am not asked for any additional information. That means anyone who knows the URL of that file can obtain its contents. Every request sent to Mega to download a file goes to their servers, which means that they control the code served to your browser. At any time, they could change that code to send them logs of which URLs you request from their service. Claims that Mega can't access the content of your files are true in only the most superficial sense. If you require secure file storage, Mega is an inappropriate solution.

downer96 13y ago

Time to wade through all the forum slide and astro turf of another two minute hate. Blah blah blah, he's fat. Blah blah blah, music thief. Blah blah blah, copyright law. Okay. Yeah, we get it. That's great. We get it. The fat man has a website, and it's very bad. He's a fat, ugly, stinky man. Boo hoo! Make him go away! I'm still not clear on what it is about his website, and all the implicit data transfer it's responsible for, that's so radically different from any other website that hosts massive amounts of any data I want, shared with the world. Flickr, for example, let's me share Terabytes of data, if I should choose to do so. Why isn't flickr villified like some genocidal dictator?

AnthonyMouse 13y ago
> Flickr, for example, let's me share Terabytes of data, if I should choose to do so. Why isn't flickr villified like some genocidal dictator? Mostly because movie studios have more lobbyists and PR flacks than still photographers. Also, Hollywood does vilify the various other websites. YouTube is an evil pirate website which Viacom has had to sue to vindicate its rights, didn't you know? And a couple of YouTube founders watched a Hollywood movie someone uploaded to YouTube that one time, so therefore Google should have to shut down YouTube and pay a billion dollars.
Malstrond 13y ago
What is your counter-argument to the fact that he turned "on us" in the past when he gave all information on users of the House of Coolness BBS to the authorities, the lawyer Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth, and just about anyone who would pay? How can "we" be sure he won't just cave in again?
- downer96 13y ago
  I fail to see the difference between your complaint and the reality of all large tech companies, as we now know them to be. Secret agreements for wire taps and traffic analysis. National security letters and eavesdropping. Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft. All of them. I say again: Why is this guy more evil than anyone else? Why is he worse than, say, Steve Ballmer? Why is he smeared, but other corporate parasites, not so much?

earbitscom 13y ago

Two massive problems with this plan. Next to no artists own the rights to their music. So, there will be no significant catalog on this service unless people falsely claim to be the rights holder (as they do on Grooveshark) and upload the content under DMCA, then start collecting fraudulent checks for the material. But the main problem is, the kinds of people who will install garbage on their computer in order to get free music are already getting it through Pirate Bay, etc. If I care enough about getting it "legally" through this service, wouldn't I have a problem ripping off the other companies whose sites I browse that depend on the ad revenue I'm now depriving them of? "Hey music lovers - make sure your favorite artists get some hard earned money from their music by taking it away from all those writers, game makers and other people whose products you use!"

earbitscom 13y ago
To that point, anybody who works for an ad-supported web business ought to realize this is a plan to rip them off by someone who really just cannot figure out how to make money without taking it from others.
- Guthur 13y ago
  From my understanding the only party that can make money without taking it from others are governments, though they do take as well.
  - earbitscom 13y ago
    Exchanging value is different than taking value. What is this guy giving to the websites whose ads he's replacing?

1010011010 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

Referencing some "copyright industry" is like saying that farmers are part of some "private land industry." Its a legal protection that's available to everyone, not just one industry. Its also a legal protection that is more morally justifiable than private land, seeing as it protects original works of creation rather than (in the U.S., anyway) land stolen from native Americans (which in any case is a product of nature).

letstryagain 13y ago
You are correct but I think everyone understands that they mean the RIAA / MPAA in this context.
bad_user 13y ago
> It protects original works of creation Disney.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Disney paid $210MM to produce _Brave_, which money went not only to creatives, animators, and movie production types, but also to software developers, testers, devops teams, and network administrators.
  - icambron 13y ago
    I agree that Disney should receive copyright protection on its new works. My complaint (and I assume the parent's) is the part where they keep that copyright indefinitely through retroactive extensions. It's not supposed to be a permanent rent, regardless of what they do with the money.
  - Peaker 13y ago
    And nobody is now allowed to create any derivative work to benefit society for the next ~200 years (or perpetually, if Disney has their way). Ironic, since virtually all of Disney's works are based on public domain works that they themselves would be banned from using if their bought laws had existed then.

Guthur 13y ago

For me the pertinent part of this and related stories is that the governments will undertake any action no matter how abhorrent at the beckoning of whatever lobby dollars come their way. That is the real criminality; text book protection racketeering. Whether or not what Kim is doing is right or wrong, or if he is a nice person or not is a red herring and is used to deflect people away from the real issue. This article had so many character assassination elements I would not consider it impartial journalism at all.

criley2 13y ago

Kim's story is interesting and I enjoyed that part of the article but I think the analysis of the music industry and Kim's new venture is very wrong. Firstly: his monetization strategy is a browser extension that strips ads out of sites and places his own. This is appalling and I'm shocked the Guardian, a site that undoubtedly relies on internet advertising, doesn't realize that his monetization strategy would prevent even them from monetizing users who used both services. Getting past the grossly immoral monetization, the article casts the music industry as, once again, some unchanging monolith that refuses to change in light of modern ideas. Last time I checked, I can buy mp3's one by one, without DRM, and load them on any device I want, from any number of online stores. Last time I checked, I can use Spotify or another service and listen to the vast majority of popular music free with ads, or for $5/mo. I don't get it, I can go to bandcamp or soundcloud right now and see thousands of indies who aren't signing labels and who are putting their music out there, selling it and giving it away. It's not 2001 like that article desperately pretends, and our music reality is not what it was. (And if they think Kim or any web music site can upend the entertainment business of nationally popular celebrity/artists, then I charge that they don't even understand the basics of why it's successful).

erikpukinskis 13y ago
I respect your beliefs, but I disagree that it is immoral to give people a tool that swaps ads for your own. It's not nice but I think once you send someone some bits, you give up any claim to control what they do with them in the privacy of their own home. Even if they swap out the ads. In fact I would argue using physical violence (police) to enforce what you deem to be "proper private use" of distributed bits is immoral.