4 ms·

Ok, controversial opinion here: he made downloading/sharing files easy, Dropbox-style. Had his "startup" been in Silicon Valley, things would have turned out ve

by 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.
        12y ago
  - axx 12y ago
    The real problem is the copyrighted material. I personally think it's perfectly OK to share revenue with your users if someone else signs up for your service and downloads something that you've share. MegaUpload makes a profit from people buying Premium because of a certain user and they reward them for that. If the copyright-topic wasn't an issue, this would be quite a nice business model (at least a kind of fair one). But this revenuesharing thing encourages people to upload files for a mass audience, and that's the reason why this doesn't work.
  - zorked 12y ago
    So it worked exactly like YouTube?
    - neolefty 12y ago
      Doesn't YouTube have a mechanism to divert the revenue to the copyright holder, but still keep the video up? Some overlap in functionality -- sharing potentially copyrighted material -- but the attitude of the two companies seems pretty different.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
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.

by Aissen 12y ago

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.
      - 12y ago
- axx 12y ago
  The real problem is the copyrighted material. I personally think it's perfectly OK to share revenue with your users if someone else signs up for your service and downloads something that you've share. MegaUpload makes a profit from people buying Premium because of a certain user and they reward them for that. If the copyright-topic wasn't an issue, this would be quite a nice business model (at least a kind of fair one). But this revenuesharing thing encourages people to upload files for a mass audience, and that's the reason why this doesn't work.
- zorked 12y ago
  So it worked exactly like YouTube?
  - neolefty 12y ago
    Doesn't YouTube have a mechanism to divert the revenue to the copyright holder, but still keep the video up? Some overlap in functionality -- sharing potentially copyrighted material -- but the attitude of the two companies seems pretty different.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]

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.