Kim Dotcom Says Legal Fight Has Left Him Broke 117
mrspoonsi writes Kim Dotcom, the founder of the seized file-sharing site Megaupload, has declared himself "broke". The entrepreneur said he had spent $10m (£6.4m) on legal costs since being arrested in New Zealand in 2012 and accused of internet piracy. Mr Dotcom had employed a local law firm to fight the US's attempt to extradite him, but his defence team stepped down a fortnight ago without explaining why. Mr Dotcom said he would now represent himself at a bail hearing on Thursday. He denies charges of racketeering, conspiring to commit copyright infringement and money laundering. He told a conference in London, via a video link, that his lawyers had resigned because he had run out of money. "The [US authorities] have certainly managed to drain my resources and dehydrate me, and without lawyers I am defenceless," he said. "They used that opportunity to try and get my bail revoked and that's what I'm facing."
says Kim (Score:1)
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i don't care. why do "kim dotcom" stories keep appearing here?
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Kim is thinking about buying Slashdot and calling himself Kim Slashdot Dotcom.
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Because the travesty of justice made by illegally arresting him and seizing his assets is more important than the man himself.
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Lying is also a time honored practice by (former) Internet CEOs. I wouldn't call Kim Dotcom "joe average".
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I agree, if he had really been broke, he'd certainly would have proclaimed it MEGA-BROKE !
says Kim (Score:1)
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They do look a lot alike.
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Broke and his defense team quit without explanation. Can't imagine any connection there, eh?
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Couldn't even read TFS, hey?
He told a conference in London, via a video link, that his lawyers had resigned because he had run out of money.
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>> Seriously. For 10 million dollars he could of raised an army and taken over a small country. All he would have to do then is pass a law forbidding an extradition to America and he would of been set. 10 million dollars could have bought any number of extra-legal solutions to his problems.
Is that some kind of slang?
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He is mimicking Polandball.
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Re:It happened (Score:5, Funny)
Kind have
Justice is served! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't actually beat 'em, just bankrupt 'em or drive 'em to suicide!
I love the modern concept of "justice"
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Re:Justice is served! (Score:4, Insightful)
considering the money he spent on extravagance, political campaigning and other crap I would hardly say he was bankrupted by the system. System may not have helped but his own spending is more of an issue here.
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When you look up "entitlement" there's a picture Kim Dotcom.
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Yam enough of the poor Kim articles. I only have so much self-righteous rage to go around. Sounds like he made his bed, now he can sleep in it.
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mmm yams. Meant ya.
Re:Justice is served! (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing is, no matter how much of a douchbag you think he is the fact that he is fighting illegal actions by the US government against a citizen of another country is enough lend your support. Sometimes you have to support scoundrels if you want to support freedom.
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The thing is, no matter how much of a douchbag you think he is the fact that he is fighting illegal actions by the US government against a citizen of another country is enough lend your support. Sometimes you have to support scoundrels if you want to support freedom.
NO I really don't. There are so many genuine cases happening all the time where people are being treated like shit by the government that there is no needed to support a scumbag, especially a rich piece of shit scumbag that has no one to blame but himself for his situation.
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If you can't actually beat 'em, just bankrupt 'em or drive 'em to suicide!
I love the modern concept of "justice"
They didn't bankrupt him; he did that. He could probably have hired less experienced lawyers to represent him. My guess is his lawyers were up-front about the rates and he decided to keep using them anyway.
It's a bad system, and his choices sucked at the point where he had already committed what is technically a pretty major crime, but he still had choices.
Pretty much everyone I've ever met--with a very few exceptions--believe that copyright violation should get noncommercial violaters no more than a smal
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But this is commercial infringement. It's a big deal.
"It's commercial, so it's a big deal." doesn't follow. I certainly don't agree that it's a "big deal."
The system still sucks, but is anyone claiming he's actually an innocent guy getting railroaded?
I claim that the government have violated all sorts of standard procedures and therefore deserves to suffer for it. It doesn't matter how 'bad' Kimmy is.
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Is it serious, though? I get that he is likely to have violated the letter of the statutes, but it's my understanding that he was basically running an offsite storage service with de-duplication, so technically he would have been in volition, but in practice each of his customers would have had licenses, and if he hadn't been using de-duplication to save storage space, he may have been in the clear.
So, if his external facing service was functionally identical to a non-infringing service, is it really a ser
Re: Justice is served! (Score:1)
Is copyright infringement ever a serious crime to begin with? Is there a victim somewhere? It's been shown time and again that the bulk of infringements are not lost sales, so it's really just rich corporations crying "no fair!" because someone got to see/hear their stupid crap for free. Which boils down to "we're a bunch of babies who get butthurt when everyone doesn't play by our rules because we're obsessed with the illusion of power and control". I don't take their stupid monkey games seriously, and ne
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He could probably have hired less experienced lawyers to represent him. My guess is his lawyers were up-front about the rates and he decided to keep using them anyway.
Eh, this is why we should just move to a Judge Dredd style of justice. People don't need legal counsel. The fuck is their problem with having their assets seized and being imprisoned effectively by a foreign power? They only have themselves to blame, amirite?
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'Erm' yeah, like cos you know, innocent until proven guilty because we don't believe you, when the you is the government and they have to prove their claims in a public court. This of course because without public courts governments have proven to be totally 100% corrupt when it comes to accusing people of crimes and basically chopping off their heads for all and sundry reasons. So yeah innocent and the government most definitely does not have the legal right to use the prosecutorial system as a penalty in
Re:Justice is served! (Score:5, Interesting)
They didn't bankrupt him; he did that.
That's splitting hairs. Without his legal team, he had been extradited by now.
But this is commercial infringement.
Highly doubtful. He offered free access to delete content, a system similar to the one that Youtube has implemented, and had an additional team of employees to deal with copyright complaints. Three different legal teams checked the business model and gave him the thumbs up.
is anyone claiming he's actually an innocent guy getting railroaded?
I find it very unlikely that he's actually guilty of criminal copyright infringement. You would think that this law is designed for people who actually infringe copyright, but apparently not in the US. If he's guilty, then thousands of file hosting companies that are still in business would be guilty as well, and the executive boards of the biggest copyright infringers on earth Google and Youtube would all have to be in maximum security prison by now.
The problem is, however, that by "guilty" you might mean "guilty according to the faulty undue process of corrupt US justice, acting on illegaly obtained evidence and on the basis of breaking the laws of other souvereign nations". Well, in that case, he might indeed be guilty, although he still will still be able to make a pretty good case. The US does in fact not even have jurisdiction over his company, they had to resort to mind-boggling legal tricks to still be able to reach him -- tricks that no souvereign nation should allow to be pulled, but apparently some of them like New Zealand and UK are nothing more than additional states of the US.
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So... Where are those three legal teams now that gave him the incorrect information that has led him to this situation?
They should be defending him if he followed their paid advice and ended up in hot water as a result.
All three teams would agree that this is a cut and dry case and step in to defend him.
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and had an additional team of employees to deal with copyright complaints.
By encouraging it and actively looking to get high-profile illegal content uploaded, yes. Did you miss all the news about what the prosecution discovered in their internal e-mails and stuff?
I find it very unlikely that he's actually guilty of criminal copyright infringement.
Given his history, even without knowing anything about this case at all, my bet would've been on his guilt. He's a career criminal, he's been convicted before, changed countries at least twice to avoid the legal consequences of his actions - yeah, I would be more surprised if he were innocent.
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Justice has always been about revenge above anything else. Otherwise there wouldn't be a death penalty because it isn't much of a deterrence, it provides no possibility of rehabilitation or repayment, it's just as effective as life in prison for societal protection, and denunciation is kind of a silly reason to punish someone.
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It's just an eye for an eye.
Just think of all those musicians he has driven into bankruptcy by his unfettered permission of copyright infringements, like ehm... well... I'm sure we can come up with at least someone... anyone? Please?
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Finding stories about artists screwed and finally bankrupted by the music industry directly is easy - there are many more of those. I was looking for stories of artists that actually suffered direct, attributable losses to megaupload and related file sharing sites.
Liar! (Score:2)
It was his album.
aw, my heart bleeds for you, Kim (Score:1, Insightful)
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It's not his, he's renting it. But of course you'd know that if you'd read this story when it was posted on Tuesday. [slashdot.org]
aw, my heart bleeds for you, Kim (Score:1)
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Which is 18000 more than you'd be getting back from paying rent. And that's probably less than the amount you saved on your taxes via mortgage interest deductions.
Next move (Score:1, Troll)
Legal costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legal costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently he once spent over $1M to charter a yacht and throw nonstop parties during the Monaco Grand Prix. Hard to feel sorry for someone who pisses away $1M in 3 days on parties. As if the multiple convictions for fraud, espionage, and embezzlement weren't enough...
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Well, of course! After all that, how could he pay for those legal costs? Not to mention the fact that they cut off his main source of income - megaupload.com.
Without having to defend himself from all that legislation I'm sure he wouldn't have been bankrupt now. Or at least, not yet.
Here's a plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Change you name to Kim Putin, and no one will mess with you.
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I had "Kim Jong Putin" floating around up there for a while, but decided not to use it. Damn.
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If he'd changed his name to Kim Turkey he might have gotten a Presidential Pardon today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/every-thanksgiving-the-president-pardons-a-turkey-or-two-whats-the-point/2014/11/20/1b6a69da-63ab-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html
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If he's dead broke (Score:2)
Billionaires wanted (Score:3, Insightful)
If I was a billionaire, I would kick him a few mil. Its fun to have someone stand up to these turkeys. He did appear to be winning and putting egg on the face of the americans for a while there.
We must remember that the USA tried to pluck a citizen from another country by strong arming their justice department. As a non US citizen, fuck all that shit. US law isnt world law and god forbid that ever becomes so. It is so enough already as it is!
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If I was a billionaire, I would kick him a few mil. Its fun to have someone stand up to these turkeys. He did appear to be winning and putting egg on the face of the americans for a while there.
We must remember that the USA tried to pluck a citizen from another country by strong arming their justice department. As a non US citizen, fuck all that shit. US law isnt world law and god forbid that ever becomes so. It is so enough already as it is!
If you were a billionaire you would probability be in the same country club as those turkeys and have a vested interest in the mater.
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You know, I wonder if that isn't just a smart business move on his part. Break up with wife on paper so she and the kids get the money and MafiAA can't take it away from them. Worst that can happen is they drag his fat arse off to jail, and daddy becomes a martyr who stuck it to THE MAN.
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And Jesus, the cost to feed that man in prison could bankrupt NZ...
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You know, I wonder if that isn't just a smart business move on his part...
Let's review, shall we?
Mrs. Dotcom:
http://i0.wp.com/www.whaleoil.... [wp.com]
Mr. Dotcom:
http://assets.hightimes.com/ki... [hightimes.com]
I bet when the money is gone, she will be too...
The lovely couple:
http://bilder.bild.de/fotos/bu... [bilder.bild.de]
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Yeah, but in his position would you rather have the assets in a trust fund for your kids, or appropriated by the MafiAA? Even if the wife leaves, his kids ultimately get the proceeds of the fund.
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Most countries have reformed trust laws and such a tactic would not legally hide any of the money, I would be shocked if they haven't also addressed these laws in NZ as this tactic has been addressed in many other countries.
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There is a big difference between assets that were always hers or earned by her and those that are transferred to her to hide them. They are generally treated differently by most countries to prevent people using this as a method to hide assets in these situations.
IANAL, but... (Score:1)
The Kim Dotcom Bubble (Score:1)
The Kim Dotcom Bubble .. has popped ?
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*golfclap*
Fucking Hypocrites! (Score:4, Insightful)
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I've a really hard time sympathizing. (Score:3)
A parasite (he didn't get a fleet of flashy cars by donating disk space to anyone) gets sucked dry by a bigger, nastier parasite.
Sorry, but if you live by a dog-eat-dog creed, don't expect tears when your pet poodle is a predator's desert.
I'm sympathetic with ISOhunt, who got crippled by the UK government, as I'm willing to bet that people after illegal ISOs searched elsewhere. They're a major source of information on ISOs for F/L/OS software, though, which is entirely legal. They got a raw deal on that, because of the bad name the *AA have given torrents. Blocking the others won't do the UK any good, but that's not the point. Nor is it the point that these services index, not host. The point is that it doesn't matter whether the links point to legitimate or illegitimate content, they're tarnished not by what they index but by the mode of transport used.
Kim DotCom is another matter. He raked in an awful lot of money by doing very very little. He'd make a great bank CEO or politician, such is his level of verminicity. Had he done essentially the same, with far less profit (it's ok for him to live, just not ok for him to own half the cars in New Zealand), far less arrogance (like I said, a bank CEO or politician), and far less swagger (maybe, just maybe a touch of humility), I might pity him more. The humble earn at least some respect for being humble. It's rare enough.
If he'd presented his service as "common carrier", then that too would be worth respect. That's legal, that's all about NOT looking at what's there and NOT being shot in the process. DotCom's approach was to be a braggart. Sorry, but that kills any respect.
As judges are renown for disliking the arrogant, swaggering braggart type, that might well have cost him every court case contested. Even on the rare occasion that justice is blind, it still has a sense of smell and arrogant, swaggering braggarts stink.
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I agree the justice system has gone haywire.
I agree the justice system has no business going haywire.
I agree the justice system has no business treating one person differently from another.
I agree that what was done was completely wrong, not just in this case but in many others.
I've said as much, repeatedly, on The Guardian's website on relevant topics. This isn't a new opinion for me.
There is a difference between having no sympathy for the guy (IMHO he deserved it) and agreeing with the justice system. I a
Wasting money (Score:2)
Perhaps he shouldn't have spent $3M trying to corrupt the government with his failed political party.
It all worked out in the end, the incumbent party he was trying to take down gathered even more votes that the previous election.
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Perhaps he shouldn't have spent $3M trying to corrupt the government with his failed political party.
It all worked out in the end, the incumbent party he was trying to take down gathered even more votes that the previous election.
We don't all carry a NZ flag to wave around in a patriotic frenzy, and most of us can't remember more than the first 6 words of the national anthem, but dammit he shouldn't have attacked our Prime Minister, thats our job.
If the paperwork had been properly prepared and everybody had sought the appropriate legal advice in the first place, he woulda been pushed into a plane when they first stormed his rent-a-manor instead of being left to waste taxpayers money here in Auckland, not to mention the man hours was
about time (Score:2)
Sure, there were blunders and probably a few laws were broken during his prosecution, but to all the fools rooting for Kimble here I say: About time justice finally caught up with this guy who's been a career criminal for most of his life, sold out his friends to the law before to get a better deal for himself, and has dodged prison by changing country too often already.
I hope they put him away for good.
And I hope his fanclub here will learn the difference between downloading movies for free and rooting for