Regardless of what you might think of Kim, his personality, his wealth fact is the US administration broke it's own (and international) law to take him out. The administrations' style is one of intimidation and aggression. Laws are for regular people it seems. Kim was left without access to his own funds / video-footage / hardware so he would not be able to set up an effective defense.
This entire ordeal tells us more about the current administration than Kim.
Please don't spare the New Zealand government. It is shameful how far politicians and police here went out of their way to try and impress. Pathetic, weak and disgusting. We have laws too, and a fair few were broken by NZ agencies.
This seems to be the case for any country when faced with US pressure over copyright issues, whether it's agreeing to one-sided treaties which serve only to protect US content owners, or working with US agencies to track down and apprehend "criminal" infringers anywhere they happen to be in the world.
Everyone just does what America asks of them. It's shocking.
Correct. Anyone remember the time the US drafted the "The Netherlands / The Hague invasion plan"? Target of invasion? The International Criminal Court, if America of US soldiers were ever brought before trial for war-crimes. Seems International means non-us. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pro...
Hell, they overthrew the elected Prime Minister of Australia because he abolished the military draft, pulled Australian troops out of Vietnam, and was threatening to forbid the renewal of the lease for a US military base.
The right to self-determination is really only something America enjoys. When it needs to, it imposes its will upon other countries, often in the most cruel and twisted possible way.
Gough Whitlam was fired in 1975, as the US was pulling out anyway. He was fired because the Senate had blocked supply, and he was trying to secure alternative funding (which just isn't done). Kerr (the Governor General, who was mostly a figurehead but is technically the acting head of state) and Fraser (leader of the opposition) both suggested compromises. Whitlam thought that he didn't need the Senate or GG's cooperation, and that the whole "Westminister system" was a formality he could do without. So they sacked him.
tl;dr - there was a Constitutional crisis, with the House and Senate disagreeing. The Prime Minister didn't want to negotiate, or call for a new election, so he was removed.
No matter what people say about the legality/morality of his businesses, I love this guy's oversized personality. He's one of those guys that keeps things interesting on the internet.
So you love people who since the 90s have been repeatedly caught and found guilty of fraud, insider trading, piracy and who cut deals with the police by turning in former friends and associates?
This is the side of kim people seem to have collectively forgotten over the last 10 or so years in which he has disappeared and was making tons of money from mu.
Isn't taking from the rich and giving to the poor a key activity of a saint?
I may or may not agree with the guys views, or activities, but he has helped a lot of poor people consume a lot of media they would not otherwise have had access to.
a) I don't think that truly poor people have the means to be spending their time "consuming media". That definitely falls at least close to "first world problem".
b) Despite the RIAA, which is an organization that deserves every bit of the scorn it gets, piracy mainly hurts artists, writers, and other "content creators". Creatives like me and a lot of other people on here. The suits that the RIAA really represents have plenty of other means to feed themselves.
I don't know how this guy made his money, but he ain't no saint.
This is an elitist view of the world. In what universe does a rich person deserve to consume media at greater rates than poor people? Or because they're poor, must they spend all 16 waking hours trying to work for food, no time to consume such media? Or because they're poor, they shouldn't be able to afford the arbitrarily-set prices of said media? Or because they're poor, we simply don't care about what they can do or not do?
I think parent's point was that 'truly poor' people don't have time to consume media because they are too busy working to keep their head above water.
I don't necessarily agree with the idea that only people in this state of existence can be called 'poor.' I'd say that 'poor' is more general, and that those people are at the extreme end of the 'poor' spectrum.
My point was more that I don't know how you can call someone poor who can't afford to buy the album or the book or the movie, but can somehow afford the device that they can play it on. That doesn't sound like my idea of "poor", it sounds more like "I don't feel like parting with my $15 right now".
Poor also includes the children of the poor. Who, in western society, are unable to earn much income irrespective of talent due to their age. The majority of pirates are poor adults, and children. Yes, the adults can work harder, better, but the children can't.
Kim isn't a saint in my view, but let's not doubt how far and wide his mega site spread the free content net. There's a reason so many love the guy.
Kim is massive attention seeker. He wants to be a hero and lots of people think he is some kind of rogue warrior going against the man.
The truth is that he is going to milk this to the very last cent for all of his product launches. You saw his house and his lifestyle, do you think the Pirate Bay guys live like that? Even before being released, he was saying the media companies are afraid of his new site MegaBox. Ridiculous... .
He has a long history of criminal activities of all kinds, just look at his wiki page.
This is bizarre. Why is this aimed so squarely at "Mr President" - The Obama Administration was anti SOPA, whereas the republican senate was behind it. Sure, the reality is probably more subtle than this, but if you must pick a single entity, the Republican Senate seems like a better target. Less sexy I guess.
My sense is that this takedown is supposed to send a message to the larger internet media companies. The small ones could be easy pickings, but the big ones like Netflix, Apple and Google are what the entertainment industry really cares about - and as they see their markets being transformed, they will fight with whatever they've got. And one thing they've got is the law and political experience.
They picked on Kim because he's an unlikeable character. He's rich and arrogant, and his alignment with hip hop and youth culture won't win him supporters in DC or in governments.
I'm even more confused having spent 20 minutes consuming the bizarro content on this site.
This appears to be an anti-obama website though he isn't making it directly clear. Sure, we should question our elected officials, and hold them against the standards on which they were elected (Change in Obama's case), and that's what he seems to be doing in the first section.
I'm just not sure why he is taking some of the goodwill he might have built up and directing it at Obama. I might be wrong, but I suspect he would be much worse off under a Romney Administration.
You're assuming logic. He's trying to stir up attention for his personal brand, and his associated products. I don't think he necessarily believes that Obama/Biden had anything direct to do with the action, but playing up that angle gets him tons of PR.
It was a bipartisan effort carried out mainly for the entertainment industry. The reason why there were more Dems is largely because the business is in California, and is heavily unionized. The employees in the entertainment industry tend to see piracy as something that costs them money and jobs.
The only reason he doesn't like copyright law is because it stands in the way of him living the life he wants.
This guy absolutely disgusts me -- he doesn't give a shit about free speech, he just wants to live in his enormous mansion and eat far too much food and drive expensive cars and show off his trophy wife.
The only reason Hollywood loves copyright law is because it provides a way for all of them to live the life they want.
These people absolutely disgust me -- they don't give a shit about their loyal fans, they just want to live in their enormous mansions and eat far too much food and drive expensive cars and show off their sham Hollywood tabloid marriages.
I'd suggest that you need to work out whether you want an ally with that much baggage and that many enemies.
People who are ideologically aligned to you you stand by, people who are co-incidentally aligned to you you get to choose. In the case of Kim dotcom I think I'd want to stand a long way away from the man - some of the current stuff may be trumped up but the older stuff seems pretty nailed on.
It saddens me so much that news.ycombinator has lowered to this kind of comments. And the fact that they are up-voted show the problem of the eternal September.
In all seriousness, the law enforcement agencies concerned may have stuffed up the process, but there was a solid case against Dotcom and his associates, and everyone did indeed know Megaupload was synonymous with copyright infringement.
This attitude is very interesting. In my reading, you take offence that Kim Dotcom supports free speech only because it is in his personal interest. Similarly (I find), many shy away from defending The Pirate Bay as soon as their advertising revenue is mentioned.
Is free speech only good insofar as it can be used as a tool to create an ethically prudent world? Does free speech lose its appeal if it's invoked by Kim Dotcom and not only by rms?
More often than not people have a vested interest in advocating for free speech. In this case, that interest is obvious; Kim Dotcom is facing criminal charges for facilitating copyright infringement, and is trying to characterize the issue as one of free speech.
He's trying to lump the Megaupload takedown alongside SOPA, PIPA, etc. to ride the wave of discontent that challenged those pieces of legislation.
he doesn't give a shit about free speech,
he just wants to live in his enormous mansion
and eat far too much food and drive expensive cars
and show off his trophy wife
And what on earth does not give him a right to do that?
But it is the copyright law that made MegaUpload necessary. If not for the copyright law, we'd just download stuff off each other's homepages for free, no reason to pay Kim or anyone else.
(that was exactly why i instantly wrote the comment All that i can say to this post is "?". I don't know for sure, but i can't imagine that this is the first time for his site to be here and there is no valuable information at all that could be considered new...)
Meh, can't see his new site. What's wrong with latest Firefox ESR? The website doesn't look like too advanced (from what I can see in Opera), just a bunch of embeds.
He should declare war on retarded web designers as well.
the worst thing about this whole megaupload fubar is that Mr Schmitz gets airtime again. I had hoped that he would have disappeared for good. He was an annoying fake back when he only operated in Germany and didn't get any better over the years.
Not sure why an entry called "Kim Dotcom" linking to kim.com - a site that most that are interested in the Megaupload case already know and have visited numerous time - has to be on this site.
Nothing even has changed - i found no new information about anything on his site except maybe a new video (and i wasn't on it for at least a few weeks).
So i don't get it. I am surprised by the number of comments and up-votes for this imo completely worthless HN entry
== kim.com site linked on HN, while not conaining any new information and consisting of music videos and self promotion...??
And i didn't call case information about megaupload "worthless", i called this entry "worthless" (no new material, site is already well known, probably not the first time it has appeared here et cetera...)
Considering the page is 'powered' by Instra.com, a domain sales site, I bet you he paid $0 for it and has an arrangement to use it in exchange for the publicity that it will give them.
-) create a simple beat with maybe a slight variation when the chorus comes up, which takes 1 minute with todays software
-) fix missing singing talent through studio production / auto-tune / hearing exact singing line in headphones / professional software
-) don't think complicated: 4/4, some simple musical hooklines, lyrics about some stupid ass shit
popchart garbage that most of the world listens to.
Kim's music videos are exactly the prove (if we would need any :/) that today's music is solely about producing, not about self expression, nice rhythmical designs, creativity or art in general...
This is just like his old kimble.org page... big words and I promise you: nothing remotely justifying it actually behind it. He has been trolling JUST like this in the 90s and looks like he is using his current publicity to do the same now.
In the end it is ALL about making money for him and it always has been. He has been doing the same "business" back in the 90s and famously turned over former associates to the police to cut deals.
I remember the first time I learned of Kim - 10+ years ago.
From the early days, his questionable 'projects', his legal troubles back home, his money making schemes, him defrauding people on BMW M5 forums, etc. Then I didn't hear about him for 10 years.
When his name came out during the Megaupload uproar, I immediately remembered his name and his antics and without knowing anything about Megaupload I knew he was guilty as sin just based on his record.
With respect, not at all. Just like it is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, continually giving this guy the benefit of the doubt is naive.
I judge people based on their past actions. Not on their hypothetical potential. Kim has a history of fraud and questionable activities going back _decades_. If that makes my way of thinking frightening to you, so be it.
People are oddly repetitive, and most tend to show the same character in the future that they've shown in the past.
That much is true.
But to take that notion and to say that all people will always repeat their past... that isn't true.
For whatever percent of people that would repeat their past, there remains at least a few that will learn from their past and change their future behaviour.
What is scary is that what you've expressed does not allow for rehabilitation or for people to learn from their past. What you've expressed is a view that once someone has been judged, then that leopard cannot change it's spots.
Taking your view to the logical conclusion: Experience counts for nothing, as no-one can learn from it. Teaching counts for nothing, as no-one can learn from it.
Here we are on HN, where one of the mantras repeated over and over is test and pivot. Try something, find you're wrong, learn from it, seek a different direction. To learn from failure what not to do in the future.
Your moral philosophy is that personal change and improvement is impossible as the leopard cannot change it's spots. This precludes from the outset any chance for social mobility, any chance of rehabilitation, any chance of humanity learning from our own history.
This entire ordeal tells us more about the current administration than Kim.