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Everytime I see a headline about Kim, I wonder why its interesting to people. Is it the equivalent of internet rubber-necking? He did some bad things, made a lo

Everytime I see a headline about Kim, I wonder why its interesting to people. Is it the equivalent of internet rubber-necking? He did some bad things, made a lot of money, then profited from redistribution of copyrighted material - why is he internet famous?

Aissen 12y ago
Ok, controversial opinion here: he made downloading/sharing files easy, Dropbox-style. Had his "startup" been in Silicon Valley, things would have turned out very differently; starting with less emphasis on copyrighted material piracy(maybe), but also more political weight (hello, VC connections), and probably not a raid at its house while its US competitors are safe.
- diminish 12y ago
  Think of, uber, airbnb or dropbox. if they were non-SV and non-US they could face similar attacks of having illegal business practices and even end up in a raid of the founder's houses. Silicon Valley is the strongest lobby for novelty and innovation. Even it struggles sometimes against the established laws and businesses.
  - balazsdavid987 12y ago
    I think you are not aware of the business model of MegaUpload. 1. John uploads a file and distributes the link. 2. Jane wants to download the file. She can do it freely (low speed, daily limits) or for a little fee (fast download, no limits). 3. Jane wants to download many files, so she signs up for a premium account. 4. John gets a comission from MegaUpload. What happens if John uploads copyrighted material and drives sales for MegaUpload using pirated software and movies? Well...the file gets removed, but nothing else. He can continue doing it again and again, even uploading the same file again. And this was going on on a massive scale, hundreds of people were earning several thousand dollars per month from this and -- according to court documents -- Kim was very much aware of this and even actively encouraged uploaders to supply copyrighted material to the system.
    - lmm 12y ago
      Plenty of the named SV startups - AirBnB or Uber - have their whole business model fundamentally based on encouraging people to violate laws (by renting out rooms in violation of local regulations, or by acting as a taxi driver in a car that isn't insured for it). Just as with MegaUpload, you don't have to break the law to use the service, but most people do, and they turn a very blind eye to it.
      - rtpg 12y ago
        Even if people might think that freely sharing movies shouldn't be illegal, I think that most people feel that some random guy on the internet making money distributing camrips of The Dark Night is Not Cool(tm). I think a lot less people have much of an opinion on unlicensed cabbies existing. AirBnB is a bit more controversial (anti-subletting clauses are there for neighbors more than for landlords, and NIMBY plays a role), but some people are cool with that so long as they trust their neighbor's judgement. I do agree that the SV-ness of these two companies has helped immensely.
        howeyc 12y ago
        What people think is immaterial. With all three companies (Uber,Airbnb,MegaUpload) you have people breaking the law using the service. All three services turned a blind eye to this in the name of "disruption." Kim's downfall is likely twofold: 1. Lack of Valley VCs with money saying what he's doing is good for the world. 2. The entertainment money lobby is very strong. I don't think there are taxi or anti-subletting lobbies of similar weight.
        toyg 12y ago
        > I think a lot less people have much of an opinion on unlicensed cabbies existing. No, it's just that the taxi lobby is less powerful than Hollywood, and is less used to spreading mass-propaganda. Have you ever seen ads shouting "Driving an unlicensed cab is A FELONY!" before every piece of entertainment you consume? That's why you think "most people feel" this or that about copyright infringement. It has nothing to do with the actual matter or the intensity of "natural feelings" of Joe Average about this or that topic. After all, before Napster was sued, the overwhelming majority of any population had no qualms whatsoever about copying anything digital (computer programs etc), not unlike we all had no qualms about using Uber until cabbies revolted. Napster/Mega/Uber/AirBnB all shared the commonality of enabling illegal practices on a scale previously deemed impossible. Whether this is a good thing or a bad one, it depends on individual categories, but there is no denying that they all share a fundamental challenge/disobedience of established laws.
- tinco 12y ago
  Had his "startup" been in Sillicon Valley, he had been in jail a long time ago. I don't see how there would have been less emphasis on copyrighted material, as that is and has always been the focus of megaupload and mega. What US competitors are safe? You mean I can easily share copyrighted movies with strangers on dropbox? I've never seen anyone do that.
  - wldlyinaccurate 12y ago
    > You mean I can easily share copyrighted movies with strangers on dropbox? I've never seen anyone do that. Actually, this is very common. It works in exactly the same way as MegaUpload did - Señora Pirata uploads her ripped movies to Dropbox, and distributes the public link to strangers.
    - pionar 12y ago
      The difference is that Dropbox takes reasonable steps[0] to try to ferret out and block copyrighted material. Mega did not. [0]http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/30/how-dropbox-knows-when-youre-sharing-copyrighted-stuff-without-actually-looking-at-your-stuff/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/30/how-dropbox-knows-when-your...
      - myrryr 12y ago
        Yeah, BUT, Mega did everything required under DMCA. When informed, he took down the offending data. A closer example is to compare it to youtube
        rtpg 12y ago
        I think the case relied more on the fact that people in Megaupload were uploading things, and Kim was encouraging people to upload copyrighted things. DMCA Safe Harbor doesn't apply if you're complicit, IIRC.
        icebraining 12y ago
        A closer example is to compare it to youtube Youtube, who spent millions developing a state-of-the-art image and sound recognition system (ContentID) so that copyrighted content could be detected and blocked by its holders?
- diakritikal 12y ago
  It's not so much his 'locker' site ventures, but that he's been a serial criminal for most of his life: http://www.wired.com/2012/01/kim-dotcom/ http://www.wired.com/2012/01/kim-dotcom/
- benologist 12y ago
  Mega was really just a heavy-handed sales funnel [1] forcing people to pay to pirate and paying people to upload popular content. Dropbox doesn't deserve the comparison, dropbox restrict sharing to make themselves unattractive for piracy. The similarities stop with "storing heaps of files". [1] e.g. on the streaming video side megavideo they had a 72 minute per day limit on watching videos. On the download site you were throttled and made to jump through a bunch of hoops to download one file at a time for free. These were not nice sites.
alandarev 12y ago
You wonder, because you believe he is a criminal. Many others will disagree, and claim that file sharing site owner shall not be prosecuted for content people upload.
- zb 12y ago
  He was a convicted fraudster long before the Megaupload thing ever happened. Just saying.
- netcan 12y ago
  Even if you think he's a criminal, he's still an interesting character. But in any case, I think moral ambiguity is in the zeitgeist. Steve jobs, Walter White, Game of Thrones...
mafribe 12y ago
He's popular because he's an ambiguous figure that triggers so many of the conventional narrative patterns that the mass media love to sell (because they work on the target audience as wish-fulfillment): he's a risk-taker, rags to riches (to rags?), robin hood type figure, everyman gone good/bad, how the mighty have fallen, sleaze-sex-money, fast cars and model girl-friends, boy next door, david vs goliath taking on the might of the US copyright industry, dawn raids by shady corrupt government procedures, extreme -- not only in girth, persecuted for helping the common man etc etc. Journalists' dream come true. They/we can project upon him and his actions whatever fits their/our agenda. There will eventually be a movie about him.
happyscrappy 12y ago
People get confused. He is a known scam artist who sold out his friends to avoid jail time. But hey free movies.
tim333 12y ago
For me I took an interest because he's flamboyant and a character, what with the videos with the yachts, girls, mansions, helicopters and Modern Warfare 3 stuff. He'd make a good movie villain. Apart from that not so much - he was an ok stock swindler and a major copyright infringer which I guess is mildly interesting.
wslh 12y ago
It is interesting because even building a site like MegaUpload is difficult, so Kim has some interesting skills.
fit2rule 12y ago
For some of us who remember, he is basically one of the first 'entrepreneur jerk's to rise during the Internet era. MegaCar was a sign of things to come - it really heralded the Internet-celebrity age, and that was some time ago.. For me, he's just another crazy caricature that the Internet brought to the table. I wouldn't know him from scratch if it wasn't for the Internet - like so many, many other things ..
petercooper 12y ago
He's been making headlines since the 90s. Even before he got on the US radar, he was involved in inside trading, tearing up the roads of Europe, winning the Gumball Rally, getting involved in questionable financial schemes, went on the run, and God knows what else. He's a larger than life character with a long track record of media coverage and was Internet famous long before Megaupload. People are often interested in larger than life characters even when they claim not to like them; consider the reputations of Donald Trump, Justin Bieber, or the oft-misunderstood Larry Ellison.
- pantalaimon 12y ago
  He also made two movies about himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZBZV8hFb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZBZV8hFb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuGrK-ZFA8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuGrK-ZFA8
rofl1234 12y ago
i'm attracted to news about him because of my morbid curiosity for the US federal government's all-round illegal behaviors.
joeblau 12y ago
I used to follow Kim back in the late 90's early 2000's when he ran Kimble.org. At the time it was a Flash website that was pushing the boundaries of what you could do on the web. It incorporated 3D, particle emissions from your mouse, mouse pointer following and a few other Flash techniques that no one was doing at the time. He also had another site called Monkeybank which was another amazing Flash website. One of the first that I saw which used 3D models rotating with correct shadowing. I was honestly more amazed by Kim's online persona, because I never had any idea what he did. To be honest, I just saw awesome websites and a guy that looked like he was having fun being a software engineer/hacker. Then he launched the Ultimate Rally, a competitor to the Gumball 3000 race, which was all about fast cars driving across different countries in the world (Another awesome website). I think that was in the early 2000's and after that I've been watching him. Since the internet was largely anonymous, I never knew who he was or that he was falsifying his lifestyle. His websites have long since been taken down, but they are still vivid in my mind.

Aissen 12y ago

Ok, controversial opinion here: he made downloading/sharing files easy, Dropbox-style. Had his "startup" been in Silicon Valley, things would have turned out very differently; starting with less emphasis on copyrighted material piracy(maybe), but also more political weight (hello, VC connections), and probably not a raid at its house while its US competitors are safe.

diminish 12y ago
Think of, uber, airbnb or dropbox. if they were non-SV and non-US they could face similar attacks of having illegal business practices and even end up in a raid of the founder's houses. Silicon Valley is the strongest lobby for novelty and innovation. Even it struggles sometimes against the established laws and businesses.
- balazsdavid987 12y ago
  I think you are not aware of the business model of MegaUpload. 1. John uploads a file and distributes the link. 2. Jane wants to download the file. She can do it freely (low speed, daily limits) or for a little fee (fast download, no limits). 3. Jane wants to download many files, so she signs up for a premium account. 4. John gets a comission from MegaUpload. What happens if John uploads copyrighted material and drives sales for MegaUpload using pirated software and movies? Well...the file gets removed, but nothing else. He can continue doing it again and again, even uploading the same file again. And this was going on on a massive scale, hundreds of people were earning several thousand dollars per month from this and -- according to court documents -- Kim was very much aware of this and even actively encouraged uploaders to supply copyrighted material to the system.
  - lmm 12y ago
    Plenty of the named SV startups - AirBnB or Uber - have their whole business model fundamentally based on encouraging people to violate laws (by renting out rooms in violation of local regulations, or by acting as a taxi driver in a car that isn't insured for it). Just as with MegaUpload, you don't have to break the law to use the service, but most people do, and they turn a very blind eye to it.
    - rtpg 12y ago
      Even if people might think that freely sharing movies shouldn't be illegal, I think that most people feel that some random guy on the internet making money distributing camrips of The Dark Night is Not Cool(tm). I think a lot less people have much of an opinion on unlicensed cabbies existing. AirBnB is a bit more controversial (anti-subletting clauses are there for neighbors more than for landlords, and NIMBY plays a role), but some people are cool with that so long as they trust their neighbor's judgement. I do agree that the SV-ness of these two companies has helped immensely.
      - howeyc 12y ago
        What people think is immaterial. With all three companies (Uber,Airbnb,MegaUpload) you have people breaking the law using the service. All three services turned a blind eye to this in the name of "disruption." Kim's downfall is likely twofold: 1. Lack of Valley VCs with money saying what he's doing is good for the world. 2. The entertainment money lobby is very strong. I don't think there are taxi or anti-subletting lobbies of similar weight.
      - toyg 12y ago
        > I think a lot less people have much of an opinion on unlicensed cabbies existing. No, it's just that the taxi lobby is less powerful than Hollywood, and is less used to spreading mass-propaganda. Have you ever seen ads shouting "Driving an unlicensed cab is A FELONY!" before every piece of entertainment you consume? That's why you think "most people feel" this or that about copyright infringement. It has nothing to do with the actual matter or the intensity of "natural feelings" of Joe Average about this or that topic. After all, before Napster was sued, the overwhelming majority of any population had no qualms whatsoever about copying anything digital (computer programs etc), not unlike we all had no qualms about using Uber until cabbies revolted. Napster/Mega/Uber/AirBnB all shared the commonality of enabling illegal practices on a scale previously deemed impossible. Whether this is a good thing or a bad one, it depends on individual categories, but there is no denying that they all share a fundamental challenge/disobedience of established laws.
tinco 12y ago
Had his "startup" been in Sillicon Valley, he had been in jail a long time ago. I don't see how there would have been less emphasis on copyrighted material, as that is and has always been the focus of megaupload and mega. What US competitors are safe? You mean I can easily share copyrighted movies with strangers on dropbox? I've never seen anyone do that.
- wldlyinaccurate 12y ago
  > You mean I can easily share copyrighted movies with strangers on dropbox? I've never seen anyone do that. Actually, this is very common. It works in exactly the same way as MegaUpload did - Señora Pirata uploads her ripped movies to Dropbox, and distributes the public link to strangers.
  - pionar 12y ago
    The difference is that Dropbox takes reasonable steps[0] to try to ferret out and block copyrighted material. Mega did not. [0]http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/30/how-dropbox-knows-when-youre-sharing-copyrighted-stuff-without-actually-looking-at-your-stuff/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/30/how-dropbox-knows-when-your...
    - myrryr 12y ago
      Yeah, BUT, Mega did everything required under DMCA. When informed, he took down the offending data. A closer example is to compare it to youtube
      - rtpg 12y ago
        I think the case relied more on the fact that people in Megaupload were uploading things, and Kim was encouraging people to upload copyrighted things. DMCA Safe Harbor doesn't apply if you're complicit, IIRC.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        A closer example is to compare it to youtube Youtube, who spent millions developing a state-of-the-art image and sound recognition system (ContentID) so that copyrighted content could be detected and blocked by its holders?
diakritikal 12y ago
It's not so much his 'locker' site ventures, but that he's been a serial criminal for most of his life: http://www.wired.com/2012/01/kim-dotcom/ http://www.wired.com/2012/01/kim-dotcom/
benologist 12y ago
Mega was really just a heavy-handed sales funnel [1] forcing people to pay to pirate and paying people to upload popular content. Dropbox doesn't deserve the comparison, dropbox restrict sharing to make themselves unattractive for piracy. The similarities stop with "storing heaps of files". [1] e.g. on the streaming video side megavideo they had a 72 minute per day limit on watching videos. On the download site you were throttled and made to jump through a bunch of hoops to download one file at a time for free. These were not nice sites.

alandarev 12y ago

You wonder, because you believe he is a criminal. Many others will disagree, and claim that file sharing site owner shall not be prosecuted for content people upload.

zb 12y ago
He was a convicted fraudster long before the Megaupload thing ever happened. Just saying.
netcan 12y ago
Even if you think he's a criminal, he's still an interesting character. But in any case, I think moral ambiguity is in the zeitgeist. Steve jobs, Walter White, Game of Thrones...

mafribe 12y ago

He's popular because he's an ambiguous figure that triggers so many of the conventional narrative patterns that the mass media love to sell (because they work on the target audience as wish-fulfillment): he's a risk-taker, rags to riches (to rags?), robin hood type figure, everyman gone good/bad, how the mighty have fallen, sleaze-sex-money, fast cars and model girl-friends, boy next door, david vs goliath taking on the might of the US copyright industry, dawn raids by shady corrupt government procedures, extreme -- not only in girth, persecuted for helping the common man etc etc. Journalists' dream come true. They/we can project upon him and his actions whatever fits their/our agenda. There will eventually be a movie about him.

happyscrappy 12y ago

People get confused. He is a known scam artist who sold out his friends to avoid jail time. But hey free movies.

tim333 12y ago

For me I took an interest because he's flamboyant and a character, what with the videos with the yachts, girls, mansions, helicopters and Modern Warfare 3 stuff. He'd make a good movie villain. Apart from that not so much - he was an ok stock swindler and a major copyright infringer which I guess is mildly interesting.

wslh 12y ago

It is interesting because even building a site like MegaUpload is difficult, so Kim has some interesting skills.

fit2rule 12y ago

For some of us who remember, he is basically one of the first 'entrepreneur jerk's to rise during the Internet era. MegaCar was a sign of things to come - it really heralded the Internet-celebrity age, and that was some time ago.. For me, he's just another crazy caricature that the Internet brought to the table. I wouldn't know him from scratch if it wasn't for the Internet - like so many, many other things ..

petercooper 12y ago

He's been making headlines since the 90s. Even before he got on the US radar, he was involved in inside trading, tearing up the roads of Europe, winning the Gumball Rally, getting involved in questionable financial schemes, went on the run, and God knows what else. He's a larger than life character with a long track record of media coverage and was Internet famous long before Megaupload. People are often interested in larger than life characters even when they claim not to like them; consider the reputations of Donald Trump, Justin Bieber, or the oft-misunderstood Larry Ellison.

pantalaimon 12y ago
He also made two movies about himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZBZV8hFb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ZBZV8hFb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuGrK-ZFA8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuGrK-ZFA8

rofl1234 12y ago

i'm attracted to news about him because of my morbid curiosity for the US federal government's all-round illegal behaviors.

joeblau 12y ago

I used to follow Kim back in the late 90's early 2000's when he ran Kimble.org. At the time it was a Flash website that was pushing the boundaries of what you could do on the web. It incorporated 3D, particle emissions from your mouse, mouse pointer following and a few other Flash techniques that no one was doing at the time. He also had another site called Monkeybank which was another amazing Flash website. One of the first that I saw which used 3D models rotating with correct shadowing. I was honestly more amazed by Kim's online persona, because I never had any idea what he did. To be honest, I just saw awesome websites and a guy that looked like he was having fun being a software engineer/hacker. Then he launched the Ultimate Rally, a competitor to the Gumball 3000 race, which was all about fast cars driving across different countries in the world (Another awesome website). I think that was in the early 2000's and after that I've been watching him. Since the internet was largely anonymous, I never knew who he was or that he was falsifying his lifestyle. His websites have long since been taken down, but they are still vivid in my mind.