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Crime Government Piracy The Courts United States

Kim Dotcom Regrets Not Taking Copyright Law and MPAA "More Seriously" 151

Posted by timothy from the equal-treatment-under-law dept.
concertina226 writes Kim Dotcom has spoken out about his long battle over copyright with the U.S. government and his regrets about the events that have led to his arrest ahead of his bail breach hearing on Thursday that could see him return to jail in New Zealand. "Would I have done things differently? Of course. My biggest regret is I didn't take the threat of the copyright law and the MPAA seriously enough," Dotcom said via live video link from his mansion in Auckland, New Zealand at the Unbound Digital conference in London on Tuesday. ... "We never for a minute thought that anyone would bring any criminal actions against us. We had in-house legal counsel, we had three outside firms working for us who reviewed our sites, and not once had any of them mentioned any form of legal risk, so I wish I had known that there was a risk."
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Kim Dotcom Regrets Not Taking Copyright Law and MPAA "More Seriously" More

Kim Dotcom Regrets Not Taking Copyright Law and MPAA "More Seriously"

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  • frist (Score:3)

    by Holi ( 250190 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:07AM (#48458429)

    > We had in-house legal counsel, we had three outside firms working for us who reviewed our sites, and not once had any of them mentioned any form of legal risk, > so I wish I had known that there was a risk.

    Maybe you should have hired LAW firms....

    • Disruptive companies (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Anybody who is exploiting a disruptive technique MUST assume that the existing players in that market segment will act to protect their profits

      Sure the music industry is corrupt to the core, sure they deliver little value for what they charge, sure they are strangling an industry

      BUT, anybody who is going to drop a bomb on their income stream MUST be prepared for them to defend their revenues, even at the cost of the entire industry

      Anybody that wants to disrupt the must (entertainment) industry and SAVE it s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Well that would have been a waste of money against virtually unlimited government spending. Maybe, just maybe, he should have hired lobbyists and made the required political campaign pay-offs, in conjunction with deposits in certain tax haven bank accounts. Then Joe Bidden could not have so readily corruptly abused the US Department of Justice and the US State Department and the New Zealand government, at the bidding of his Hollywood campaign contributors, luxury holiday providers and party invite provider

  • Few of us have inside and outside legal counsel .. (Score:3)

    by CaptainDork ( 3678879 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:11AM (#48458471)

    .. but we know the goddam risks.

    • They thought they'd face civil suits.

      What they got blindsided by was criminal charges, where they'd be sent to jail.

      • What they got blindsided by was criminal charges, where they'd be sent to jail.

        Nobody involved with enabling massive copyright infringement (for good or ill, let's save that for other arguments please) is ignorant of the fact that the USA has criminal copyright infringement. It's a ridiculous idea that to suggest that they were blindsided by this. What's happening here is that Kim is making a statement for the record, which is actually a lie, and it's being amplified and rebroadcast by the masses of asses, like slashdot editors.

        • FYI, Dotcom wasn't living in the US.

          He had never lived in the US.

          • FYI, Dotcom wasn't living in the US.

            He had never lived in the US.

            You are just like my ISP. When I raise a salient point, you prevaricate. I tell them that their service frequently does not get my packets to the internet, they quote link uptime statistics. I give a fat fuck whether my radio link was up, if its radio link was down, and I couldn't get to the 'net. And likewise, I give a fat fuck whether Kim was living in the USA, because a) he was doing business in the USA and b) if you assume that the long arm of the USA ends at our borders, you're a fucking moron who igno

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              He might've done business in the US, but the government ignored the proper legal process in Kim's country. The US thinks it is the world police that can do as it pleases (including enforcing draconian copyright laws), so hopefully they fail in this instance.

              • He might've done business in the US, but the government ignored the proper legal process in Kim's country. The US thinks it is the world police that can do as it pleases (including enforcing draconian copyright laws), so hopefully they fail in this instance.

                I hope they (we, etc) fail here too, but it's not a foregone conclusion. We often succeed, and that's what someone needs to take away from history before assuming that it won't happen to them.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AK Marc ( 707885 )

              I give a fat fuck whether Kim was living in the USA, because a) he was doing business in the USA and b) if you assume that the long arm of the USA ends at our borders, you're a fucking moron who ignores history and the news.

              Rarely does the US actually go after people. The US knows the names of many of the drug dealers sending drugs into the US, but goes after Kim with more vigor than murderous drug dealers. It doesn't really make sense.

        • What's happening here is that Kim is making a statement for the record, which is actually a lie, and it's being amplified and rebroadcast by the masses of asses, like slashdot editors.

          Of course it's a lie. Megaupload's entire business plan was based on a perceived loophole in the DMCA takedown process that didn't exist.

          If two users uploaded the same file to Megaupload, they stored it on their servers once and provided different links to those two users. If a movie studio filed a DMCA takedown notice and provided one of those links, Megaupload would disable just the link mentioned and leave any other links to that file active. The DMCA says that once you're aware that a file is infring

          • There are plenty of files that I'm legally allowed to access but you aren't. If we both put them on a file sharing site, and your copy was removed, I'd be pretty annoyed if my copy was too.

            • There are plenty of files that I'm legally allowed to access but you aren't.

              Sure. And nobody sends DMCA takedown requests for those files.

              • I'm not so sure about that. It's well known that Megaupload was popular with some music producers for transferring work around.

  • Kimmie vs MPAA (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:12AM (#48458487)

    Whoever loses
    We win

    Never before I caught myself rooting for the MPAA. If only just a tiny little bit.

  • Wrong risk ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:14AM (#48458511) Homepage

    "We never for a minute thought that anyone would bring any criminal actions against us. We had in-house legal counsel, we had three outside firms working for us who reviewed our sites, and not once had any of them mentioned any form of legal risk, so I wish I had known that there was a risk."

    What he was doing may or may not have been legal.

    What he didn't evaluate was the risk that the MPAA et al had bought off/co-opted the US government, who decided they were going to go into the business of strong-arming people when they don't have an applicable law.

    You can't plan for stuff like that.

    From the sounds of it, no NZ law was broken, he's yet to be charged with anything for which there's an actual law in the US, and the US government is seizing his assets before they're proven he's done anything wrong.

    You can't fight a nation state acting on behalf of a cartel of corporations.

    Because it doesn't matter what the law says at that point.

    As I understand it, he never actually committed copyright infringement. So he's being charged with some made up offense which isn't a law anywhere.

    At that point, it's just a show trial.

    • Re:Wrong risk ... (Score:4, Funny)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:24AM (#48458633) Homepage Journal

      What he didn't evaluate was the risk that the MPAA et al had bought off/co-opted the US government, who decided they were going to go into the business of strong-arming people when they don't have an applicable law.

      You can't plan for stuff like that.

      What? Yes, you absolutely can. Yes, it was absolutely predictable. Yes. YES! Look, yes. The answer to all your objecting questions is yes. Yes, he could and should have predicted that the USA would do its best to sow his ground with salt. Just fucking look at us. LOOK AT US. Of course we would do that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrJimbo ( 594231 )

        You can't plan for stuff like that.

        What? Yes, you absolutely can. Yes, it was absolutely predictable. Yes. YES! Look, yes. The answer to all your objecting questions is yes. Yes, he could and should have predicted that the USA would do its best to sow his ground with salt. Just fucking look at us. LOOK AT US. Of course we would do that.

        Even if you can predict that no rules/laws will apply, how can you reasonably plan for that contingency? What would those plans look like? Should KDC have given up business and become a survivalist?

        My wholehearted prediction would have been that KDC was on the entitled side of the justice gap and as long as he had good lawyers and followed their advice then he would have nothing to worry about. The Pirate Bay getting repeatedly stomped on was not a surprise but the attack on KDC was a huge shock to me

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rakarra ( 112805 )

          Even if you can predict that no rules/laws will apply, how can you reasonably plan for that contingency? What would those plans look like? Should KDC have given up business and become a survivalist?

          Except that in this case the law was very plain and it was obvious that it was being violated. I may not like the DMCA, but it doesn't take a legal brainiac to know that refusing to comply with take-down requests (what Kim's was doing with his links vs files argument) will lead to greater legal retaliation.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rakarra ( 112805 )

            Oh, almost forgot: and if you say that the DMCA is a US law and doesn't affect people in other countries... well, you'd be absolutely right that the DMCA itself is only a US law. However, it is requirement, an implementation of WIPO treaties which all mentioned companies have agreed to.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DrJimbo ( 594231 )

            Except that in this case the law was very plain and it was obvious that it was being violated. I may not like the DMCA, but it doesn't take a legal brainiac to know that refusing to comply with take-down requests (what Kim's was doing with his links vs files argument) will lead to greater legal retaliation.

            What are you talking about? KDC followed the advice of his lawyers and complied with DMCA takedown notices. He was set up in a nasty sting operation where the FBI asked him to not take down a particular file (or files) in order to aid them in an investigation. He cooperated with the FBI and this is what they busted him for.

            For example, the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] gives Dotcom's perspective:

            In regard to Megaupload, Dotcom believes the company had actively tried to prevent copyright infringement -- its terms of service forced users to agree they would not post copyrighted material to the website. Companies or individuals with concerns that their copyright material was being posted on Megaupload were given direct access to the website to delete infringing links. Megaupload also employed 20 staff dedicated to taking down material which might infringe copyright.

            KDC was hosting files so it would be silly for him to use a "links vs files" argument as you suggest. It would have also been

    • Re:Wrong risk ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:28AM (#48458681) Journal
      It is actually probable that New Zealand law was broken, when their intelligence services were spying on him and possibly when they allowed the FBI to move a considerable volume of evidence back to the US without any legal process. As for New Zealand law being broken by the defendant, that hasn't been as well established.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by viperidaenz ( 2515578 )

        What about when Kim Dotcom lied on his residency application by failing to declare a driving conviction?

        I hope he gets deported back to Germany.

    • So he's being charged with some made up offense

      Vicarious infringement [cornell.edu] is defined as profiting from infringements that you have power to stop. A policy of paying users who share infringing copies of popular files is pretty good evidence of profiting from infringement. Safe harbor laws such as OCILLA exist in many countries to protect site operators from having to pay excessive damages due to accidental vicarious infringement, but it appears Megaupload didn't take steps to qualify for these safe harbors.

      which isn't a law anywhere.

      What do you mean by "isn't a law"? New Zealand and

    • Re:Wrong risk ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:46AM (#48458881) Homepage Journal

      What he didn't evaluate was the risk that the MPAA et al had bought off/co-opted the US government, who decided they were going to go into the business of strong-arming people when they don't have an applicable law.

      You can't plan for stuff like that.

      Bullshit.

      After the Pirate Bay was seized the 1st time, everyone in a similar business should've expected it, especially when he's a career criminal with several previous convictions, including for copyright violations, like Kimble is.

      At that point, it's just a show trial.

      And he's playing his role perfectly. What, you think he's the victim here? Please, get a grip. Actual victims of the government don't phone in their press conference from their mansion. They sit in Gitmo or some overcrowded federal prison with their assets seized through forfeiture laws. Yes, I know he's in NZ and those laws don't apply, I don't mean it literally. Everyone with three working brain cells will realized that if they wanted to, they could make his life less comfortable.

      • Everyone with three working brain cells will realized that if they wanted to, they could make his life less comfortable.

        If he weren't rich, they would have done it already. But if they nail him without truly solid pretext then other rich people (who are in a position to actually enact social change) will be leery of their pogrom. I mean, program. Wait...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tom ( 822 )

          I've yet to see any other rich people show an interest in Kimbles fate. They're not stupid, and if they care at all they've had someone check this guy and tell them he's just a slimeball whose time is up. In fact, he should've been caught years ago, he avoided prison time more than once by changing country.

          That's not how rich people work. They don't have to flee their countries, it would be too uncomfortable.

          • That's not how rich people work. They don't have to flee their countries, it would be too uncomfortable.

            I fail to see the discomfort in parking the yacht in a different harbor.

      • Re:Wrong risk ... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:59AM (#48458999) Homepage

        And he's playing his role perfectly. What, you think he's the victim here?

        No, as a matter of fact I think the man is an arrogant weasel and a parasite.

        My problem is I have yet to see anything which indicates that NZ law was adhered to, that the US didn't take massive short cuts and just bluster their way through this, and that what he's accused of is actually a law on the books which is applicable where they claim it was broken.

        I do not claim to understand all of the legalities. Not by a long shot. But, from what I've been able to see, neither the US nor NZ police bothered with them either.

        So, as soon as you start to realize they skirted around the laws for something expedient, the amount of distrust around all of the rest of it goes up quite a bit.

        If we don't have proper due process for scoundrels and assholes, what's to stop giving up on the pretense entirely?

        I think the way this was handled by the FBI and the NZ police is so sketchy as to invalidate any of the claims about what he did, and who had jurisdiction to do anything about it.

        And I also think that if he didn't have the resources to fight this, he'd have been carted off and subjected to a legal system which wasn't playing fairly.

        So, in that regards, if he's fighting police agencies who feel they don't need to adhere to the niceties of the law ... well, then I think he should continue sticking it to them.

        I'm far more concerned about the abuse of process and the law.

        Because increasingly a lot of law enforcement has decided that the ends justify the means, and the law is just too damned inconvenient to follow.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tom ( 822 )

          So, as soon as you start to realize they skirted around the laws for something expedient, the amount of distrust around all of the rest of it goes up quite a bit.

          Yeah, you'd almost think it was intentionally blundered so it would make for a great show while at the end none of the actors are harmed too much.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        When the US sent CIA thugs to threaten the sovereignty of Russia if they didn't shut down AllOfMP3, despite AOMP3 never having broken any law in the US or Russia, everyone should have expected it.

        AOMP3 was shut down by the Russian mob, not the government. It just happens that the mob was working for the government. That was used because the cartels that run the US wanted it shut down, and the law allowed it, so literally an invasion of Russia was threatened unless AllOfMP3 met with an untimely accident

    • You state something false - you certainly can recognize when you are going up against big money and thumbing your nose against it. You can certainly plan, if not for the specific tactic they will take, for the general fact that you are endangering their bottom line and that affects many people's pocketbooks and they aren't going to take that assault on their livelihood (even an unrealized one or one which simply has great potential) lying down.

      Saying you can't plan for this is saying that you can't recogniz

    • "You can't plan for stuff like that."

      He had $65 million in cash. If he had invested the $65 million in land in New Zealand (or a good portion of the $65 million), the US couldn't have taken his assets.

      So actually, he could have planned.

      A foreign government can't take your land.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        He tried. The Ministry of Foreign investment (or something like that) blocked his purchase of the $50M house he's living in.
  • Due dilligence or what ever New Zeland calls it. Your legal counsel, both in house and outside firms did not due there due dilligence! Sue them for the whole amount plus pain, suffering, incarceration, etc.

    • our legal counsel, both in house and outside firms did not due there due dilligence! Sue them for the whole amount plus pain, suffering, incarceration, etc.

      There's nothing good at the bottom of that hole, unless you've got a smoking gun that proves not incompetence, but deliberate negligence.

  • He seems to think the laws didn't apply to him.

  • He definitely did know and understand the risk. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HnT ( 306652 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:21AM (#48458609)

    Kim Schmitz started out in the BBS days and did exactly the same thing back then: providing storage for people to upload and swap "warez" on his BBS site. Google "Beverly Hills BBS" and "House of Coolness BBS". He was reading and archiving everyone's messages and when the police in Germany cracked down on him he turned on his former colleagues and friends and gave everyone up to get a better deal for himself. He was also convicted of calling card and computer fraud, a few years later he was getting rich on an insider deal scam with letsbuyit.com for which he was also convicted.
    However you might feel about hollywood abusing international leverage to break into his home, make no mistake: Kim thrives in the grey area and on illegal activities and he has several criminal convictions to prove that fact. He has repeatedly managed to at least temporarily flee jurisdiction by moving country. If there is one person who definitely understands all ins and outs of copyright then it is him, at the very least out of experience and from having been caught red handed more than once.

    This is nothing but yet another one of his charades and PR stunts. He is not fighting for you or your right to keep a "backup copy". Trying to get everyone on the net riled up is just yet another PR stunt. Kim always has been and always will be caring for only one person: himself. And he will not hesitate to lie and step on former friends and partners alike. Never just trusting anything he says should be the default.

    • This is nothing but yet another one of his charades and PR stunts. He is not fighting for you or your right to keep a "backup copy".

      I agree with you, but I also agree with his idea that information should be set free. We The People enable, protect, and to a large part even pay for the production of mass media content due to Hollywood's and Big Music's creative accounting practices which show them losing money or breaking even on clearly profitable media. And the same goes for the telecommunications infrastructure: We The People largely paid for that, not just by paying for services but actually through government grants and the like, and it's used against us to milk us of every possible cent while providing the lowest possible standard of service. The fact that we still pay more to send calls across town than to send them across the country is just ridiculous and it's based on legislation bought by the telecoms industry.

      Kim always has been and always will be caring for only one person: himself. And he will not hesitate to lie and step on former friends and partners alike. Never just trusting anything he says should be the default.

      I feel about Kim the way I feel about a big rock rolling down a hill. It's going to make a path I can follow, but I don't want to hang out with it... or in its way

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I agree with you, but I also agree with his idea that information should be set free. We The People enable, protect, and to a large part even pay for the production of mass media content due to Hollywood's and Big Music's creative accounting practices which show them losing money or breaking even on clearly profitable media. And the same goes for the telecommunications infrastructure: We The People largely paid for that, not just by paying for services but actually through government grants and the like, an

        • Well, the short answer is that in the long run I would prefer a society not based on artificial scarcity, so that people aren't so worried about getting a piece of what I've got.

          • Well, the short answer is that in the long run I would prefer a society not based on artificial scarcity,

            of something that has artificial value. None of the pirated video or audio has any real intrinsic value, it is only valued for its transient entertainment value. It's the "new hobbit movie" or "hot band's latest track". It's the final episode of a series that didn't enrich society in the long run anyway. It's the latest Henry Potter or vampire/zombie/apocalypse book. People who think they are owed a copy of such works and will take them for free if the copyright owner doesn't see fit to sell it to them, we

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )

          Bullcrap. No one believes in "information should be free" because otherwise they're all hypocrites.

          Copyright is in exchange for opening up the copyrighted material to the Public Domain. That hasn't happened for many years. Happy Birthday, a poem from the 1800s set to a song from the 1800s is still in copyright, and when it finally expires (under current rules, they can be extended again), it will be about 200 years old. Copyright violated the rules. Not us. We are trying to honor copyright as conceived and written. Old and abandoned works are "free".

          • We are trying to honor copyright as conceived and written. Old and abandoned works are "free".

            I have no argument with you when it comes to truly "old and abandoned" works where there is no possible way the original copyright holder could benefit from copyright protections. But I don't believe that the latest episode of Dr. Who, or the finale to Breaking Bad, or most of what is pirated today, are "old and abandoned" in any sense of the word. I've yet to hear the excuse "the copyright holder isn't selling that movie made 40 years ago anymore, so I feel it's ok to pirate it". What I do hear is "the co

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AK Marc ( 707885 )
              There are piles of abandonware. And lots of books printed with a short run. But anything made after Mickey Mouse will be protected to the end of time. There are books that will be lost because the runs were short, and you can't copy them. The author is dead, and often the people who inherited "other" from the estate don't even know they are a copyright holder of a book, let alone what to do with it. Speaking of which, what does happen? My father is dead. He had involvement in a number of books (he wa

              • There are piles of abandonware.

                I didn't say there wasn't. What I actually said was that I never hear anyone using "abandoned" as the excuse for skirting, or outright breaking, copyright law. Don't argue with me over things I didn't say.

                And lots of books printed with a short run.

                Books printed with a short run aren't the definition of "abandoned". Lots of things are produced "with a short run" and are hardly abandoned. The phrase is "limited edition".

                But anything made after Mickey Mouse will be protected to the end of time.

                I doubt that. Can you cite any law that says that?

                There are books that will be lost because the runs were short, and you can't copy them. The author is dead, and often the people who inherited "other" from the estate don't even know they are a copyright holder of a book, let alone what to do with it.

                You're getting closer to abandoned, but haven't quite reached it yet. Let's se

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by AK Marc ( 707885 )
                  You were so interested in proving every one of my statements wrong, you didn't address the point. Try again. Who holds the copyright of my father's writings? Who can re-print them? If the "rightful" copyright owner doesn't know he is, how is that not abandonware?

                  • You were so interested in proving every one of my statements wrong, you didn't address the point. Try again. Who holds the copyright of my father's writings?

                    I'm sorry, but when I started commenting on this I didn't know your father held any copyrights, so that could hardly be my point, now could it? I responded specifically to your statements about honoring copyright as it should be and then about how "old and abandoned" should be free. (I even AGREED with you, so yes, I deserve a long drawn-out argument about "old and abandoned" works being copyrighted for too long.) People who "honor copyright as it should be" by distributing the latest movies or TV shows a

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by AK Marc ( 707885 )

                      If they were copyrighted after 1 Jan 1978, then someone holds the copyright until 70 years after he died. You didn't tell me when that was so I cannot answer with a specific date. Now, who holds that copyright? If you recall, I said that you, as the heir, probably do, or whoever the heir is. I said that all it would take is for you as the heir to put the material in public domain and the copyright would be ended and the books freely copyable.

                      Most of his time as a history professor is after that, and he died 3 years ago. Jointly my sister and I split everything from his estate, once it's settled (it hasn't been yet, for someone over 80, who never thought he'd make it to 50, he sure left a mess of an estate). And the point was more to the fact that, without records, I don't know what he owns or shares copyright over. So anything he wrote is abandoned. I could spend time and money tracking them down, but why spend time and money on something t

                    • And the point was more to the fact that, without records, I don't know what he owns or shares copyright over. So anything he wrote is abandoned.

                      Only if the copyright holder says so. If that's you and/or your sister, then fine, you can abandon both the material and the copyright there is no limit on who can republish the material. Your fear that it will be lost forever because it will forever be subject to copyright is not a problem.

                      And if it is you, if you never go after anyone who republishes the works, who cares if the copyright is still technically active?

                      I could spend time and money tracking them down,

                      Antecedent of "them" is? The actual copyright holder? Look at the notice. People who rep

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by AK Marc ( 707885 )

                      Only if the copyright holder says so. If that's you and/or your sister, then fine, you can abandon both the material and the copyright there is no limit on who can republish the material. Your fear that it will be lost forever because it will forever be subject to copyright is not a problem.

                      Copyright keeps it from being used for another 67 years. After that time it will be lost forever (as it will have been abandoned so long nobody will be aware of it). If I knew exactly what I owned copyright over, I could free it. But I can't without identifying everything. Copyright actively harms the amount of material that makes it into the public domain. The opposite of what it's asserted to do.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        I agree with you, but I also agree with his idea that information should be set free.

        In a dialog with two extreme positions, invariable both sides are full of shit.

        You need to define "information" better. I'd not like all information about my private life be free. Nor am I interested in yours. And some information can cost lives, not because of evil government spies, but because not everyone in the world is well-meaning.

      • This is nothing but yet another one of his charades and PR stunts. He is not fighting for you or your right to keep a "backup copy".

        I agree with you, but I also agree with his idea that information should be set free. We The People enable, protect, and to a large part even pay for the production of mass media content due to Hollywood's and Big Music's creative accounting practices which show them losing money or breaking even on clearly profitable media. And the same goes for the telecommunications infrastructure: We The People largely paid for that, not just by paying for services but actually through government grants and the like, and it's used against us to milk us of every possible cent while providing the lowest possible standard of service. The fact that we still pay more to send calls across town than to send them across the country is just ridiculous and it's based on legislation bought by the telecoms industry.

        So what do you suggest as an alternative?

        How, as a society, do we fund the creation of big budget movies that a lot of people really enjoy?

        • How, as a society, do we fund the creation of big budget movies that a lot of people really enjoy?

          Crowdsourcing, I suppose. You pay for the movie ahead of time, and based on your investment you get to see the film, download it, get a DVD or a Blu-Ray or an M4V, get to be an extra in a crowd scene or whatever they're offering. There's no reason that major studios can't use this model. And then there's merchandising, official conventions, and lots of other opportunities for profit. I don't really think that there will be any problem getting enough people to fund some of these big-budget stinkers.

          • How, as a society, do we fund the creation of big budget movies that a lot of people really enjoy?

            Crowdsourcing, I suppose. You pay for the movie ahead of time, and based on your investment you get to see the film, download it, get a DVD or a Blu-Ray or an M4V, get to be an extra in a crowd scene or whatever they're offering. There's no reason that major studios can't use this model. And then there's merchandising, official conventions, and lots of other opportunities for profit. I don't really think that there will be any problem getting enough people to fund some of these big-budget stinkers.

            Then go for it and show that it's a viable model.

            The best way to get rid of copyright is to make it unncessary. A major Creative Commons movie would go a very long way to doing that.

            • Then go for it and show that it's a viable model.

              I don't know if it is, yet, because of the successes of the copyright cartel.

              • Then go for it and show that it's a viable model.

                I don't know if it is, yet, because of the successes of the copyright cartel.

                Cop out. Nothing in the "copyright cartel" (whatever that is supposed to be) stops you from producing a big-budget motion picture under CC licensing, nor does it stop anyone else. You'll claim that it is a viable model, but when challenged to use it you'll admit that you don't know that it is because nobody else has done it yet. The fact nobody else has done it yet is your excuse it cannot be done.

                What does stop people from doing this is the knowledge the people who actually have the money to do such a th

                • Nothing in the "copyright cartel" (whatever that is supposed to be)

                  When will you learn to use the internets, including important features like a search engine? But frankly, I believe that your obtuseness is entirely disingenuous. You cannot have an interest in this subject and not be familiar with that phrase.

                  What does stop people from doing this is the knowledge the people who actually have the money to do such a thing have: that they'd be spending a lot of money and never get it back.

                  Of course they would. They'd make a profit, too. They might not be able to make the kind of fuck-you profits they make now, not least through that aforementioned creative accounting.

                  No, it isn't a viable model. THAT'S why nobody has done it yet. Not because of some mythical "copyright cartel" that prevents someone from doing it.

                  It's not about prevention. It's about not being able to compete with someone who is su

                  • Of course they would. They'd make a profit, too.

                    Who is being disingenuous here? Why would they make a profit when anyone who does a quick google for what they're selling would find it for half price or even less from someone else? Other people can sell for those prices because they didn't have the production costs -- it costs almost nothing to dupe a DVD, but it costs a lot of money to produce a good quality movie. Nobody who is smart enough to have a couple of million dollars to spend on producing a movie would be dumb enough to accept the nonsense tha

                    • Who is being disingenuous here?

                      You, if you either claim not to know what the "copyright cartel" is, or claim to be interested in copyright. Both cannot reasonably be true.

                      Why would they make a profit when anyone who does a quick google for what they're selling would find it for half price or even less from someone else?

                      Because they get the money up front, that's how this sort of thing works, you are not very smart.

                      But there's no competition from the "copyright cartel". They can't stop you from making your movie or distributing it.

                      Wow, you're staggeringly stupid. People aren't going to pay for movies up front when they have the option to pay for movies which have already been made, because they are too stupid to realize that in the current system, they're paying for movies that they're not even watchi

                    • Why would they make a profit when anyone who does a quick google for what they're selling would find it for half price or even less from someone else?

                      Because they get the money up front, that's how this sort of thing works, you are not very smart.

                      I don't know what kind of comic book fantasy world you live in, but nobody who sells stuff gets money "up front" when nobody is buying anything from them. If someone else can knock off the movie I produced with my own money and sell it for 1/10 the price, then I don't get anything "up front" but the fun of spending a lot of money for a movie I can't get any money back on.

                      Wow, you're staggeringly stupid. People aren't going to pay for movies up front when they have the option to pay for movies which have already been made,

                      I'm sorry, does this have anything to do with what I said? Your "copyright cartel" cannot stop me from making a movie or selling it. The

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If he is telling the truth, he sought legal advice, and all of this lawyers told him he was "legal". I've also personally had lawyers lie to me about what was legal.

      Yes, he operated the grey area - most companies do. All professional shady companies use lawyers to stay "legal".

      Companies who evade taxes using loopholes are just as grey as this.

    • Re:He definitely did know and understand the risk. (Score:5, Funny)

      by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @01:23PM (#48460033)

      This is nothing but yet another one of his charades and PR stunts. He is not fighting for you or your right to keep a "backup copy". Trying to get everyone on the net riled up is just yet another PR stunt. Kim always has been and always will be caring for only one person: himself. And he will not hesitate to lie and step on former friends and partners alike. Never just trusting anything he says should be the default.

      ... and yet, somehow, he still comes across as less sleazy than the people going after him.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:24AM (#48458641)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Minwee ( 522556 )

      the MPAA has extremely powerful political connections and can rewrite rules as it sees fit. It can escalate your extradition, exacerbate your arrest, and fleece your civil liberties all under the guise of the free market and "intellectual property" law.

      And if not only his in-house legal council but also three outside firms working for him were completely unaware of this, then perhaps they stick to watching re-runs of Matlock and leave the practise of law to the big kids.

  • Maybe there wasn't a legal risk that would have held up in court. What all that legal council evidently failed to mention is the very real threat of crippling litigation that, while ultimately unsuccessful, could still wipe you out in the process.

    I guess that's one thing separating the 'good' legal council from the 'best'. The former will stop at examining the laws, the latter will also examine all the ways the laws could be abused to achieve the same result.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      This.

      It wasn't the law that got Kim. It was the politics and the Powers That Be behind our government not liking what he was up to. Legal council is supposed to inform one of legal risk. Assessing business risk was up to Kim. Where he got into trouble was stepping into a legal gray area that his attorneys could not have foreseen: The ability of entities like the RIAA and MPAA to utilize US law enforcement assets to protect their business interests.

  • In fairness... (Score:5)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:26AM (#48458667) Journal
    It's not entirely unreasonable for him to have legally evaluated them as an industry actor with a potential for engaging in civil litigation as a strategic measure in order to advance their business objectives.

    Being surprised that the money was only the beginning, and they had enough pull to obtain the (illegal) cooperation of New Zealand's clandestine services, a well armed raid on his residence(rather than a nasty subpoena at work), and nearly unlimited FBI access to an investigation and set of evidence in New Zealand, followed by the sort of dogged prosecution-by-any-means from Uncle Sam that you usually have to move a lot of cocaine or deal in embarassing state secrets to earn is somewhat understandable.

  • Sure he didn't (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:31AM (#48458717) Journal

    This is exactly comparable to someone with lung cancer who started smoking in 2002 and saying "I wish I'd known there was a risk."

    What he needs to do next is figure out how to frame himself as a victim. If only he was brown or female instead of a fat white man. Everyone knows fat white men are the last approved object of public ridicule.

  • us vs. them (Score:3)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @11:41AM (#48458821) Homepage Journal

    Dotcom said via live video link from his mansion

    No need to read any further.

    Kimble isn't "one of us", and never was. He's a career criminal, just like the MPAA and most politicians. He's not the Robin Hood his PR agency tries to create, he's just the sheriffs jealous brother. Same breed, same morality, and given half the chance, he'll fuck you over the same way for a quick buck.

    I wish /. would spend less time on these celebrity spectacles and more on the people who actually make a difference, who actually are on our side, whose interest goes beyond having a mansion and a private helicopter.

    • I wish /. would spend less time on these celebrity spectacles and more on the people who actually make a difference, who actually are on our side, whose interest goes beyond having a mansion and a private helicopter.

      That's the whole point. Kim Dotcom is able to reach the masses that don't even know about slashdot. So just hanging around on slashdot going on about Michael Geist, Derek Khanna, the EFF, etc. is like going on about a rare stamp among stamp collectors. Nobody else knows/cares. So a widely-known name is what we need so badly. A popular, public figurehead that takes on the Copyright MAFIAA openly and that can't be "crushed like a bug" quite easily like Aaron Swartz was. Unfortunately that takes a lot of mone

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        That's the whole point. Kim Dotcom is able to reach the masses that don't even know about slashdot.

        Yes, that exactly is the problem. Every aspiring dicator learns in propaganda 101 to control the story. Having someone like Kimble be the "face" of file sharing is a smart move. He's an asshole, a criminal, he's rich out of touch with reality. He's not the guy that John and Jane feel close to. He's just another "celebrity" scandal.

        A popular, public figurehead that takes on the Copyright MAFIAA openly and that can't be "crushed like a bug"

        Oh, please. Kimble will sell out his friends to cut a deal. That's not an assumption - he's done it before. He will not fight this fight for you. He'll bail out at the first good

  • I think what he actually regrets is not having the $65 million.

  • His problem is that he wasn't Dropbox (Score:3)

    by quax ( 19371 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @01:09PM (#48459883)

    They have Condi Rice on the board of directors and know how to 'play nice'.

  • Oh really? They took all his stuff and ruined his company and now he wished he wouldn't have been such an arrogant fat bastard. If only he also took seriously how the entire world hates him.

  • Misleading headline (Score:3)

    by J'raxis ( 248192 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @02:17PM (#48460675) Homepage

    Headline: Kim Dotcom Regrets Not Taking Copyright Law and MPAA "More Seriously"

    Article: "My biggest regret is I didn't take the threat of the copyright law and the MPAA seriously enough," Dotcom said ...

    Big difference between taking the law seriously and taking the threat of the law seriously. The headline implies that there's some sort of actual legitimacy to the law and that he's almost apologetic for doing something "wrong." The actual quote however is just a recognition that the government thugs are the thugs they are and the threat they represent is real.

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