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Kim Dotcom Alleges Studios Wanted to Work With Megaupload
Fluffeh writes "In a recent story that is beating around the nets, Kim Dotcom has fired back at studios with emails that make for some interesting reading: 'A Disney executive e-mailed Megaupload in 2008. He said he was interested in having Megaupload host Disney content, but said he would need Megaupload to tweak its terms of service to make it clear Disney retained ownership of files uploaded to the site. He sent Megaupload a proposed alternative to the standard Megaupload TOS. Fox emailed "Please let me know if you have some time to chat this week about how we can work together to better monetize your inventory," in an attempt to promote their newly launched ad network. And finally, this gem: a Warner Brothers executive e-mailed Megaupload seeking to expedite the process of uploading Warner content to Megaupload. "I would like to know if your site can take a Media RSS feed for our syndications," he wrote. "We would like to upload our content all at once instead of one video at a time."' Pot calling the kettle black anyone?"
Torrentfreak is running the full interview with Kim Dotcom.
Looks like it's time to arrest him again, for rape this time.
Not surprising in the least.
It really seems like the studios are using threats of various laws as tokens in negotiating favorable terms in business deals rather then as tools for actually protecting their IP.
If you had millions to invest in Disney, they would listen. You sound mighty naive.
His business is borked, his entire personal and corporate asset base has been siezed and he faces a long stretch in the pen'.
He better not breach that NDA he signed, he might get in trouble!
What would happen if an individual tried to send Disney a revised TOS for one of their services?
Eh, what is your point? Feel free to send Disney your revised TOS. They can either accept or reject it. Just like MegaUpload could do.
They weren't forcing MegaUpload to change anything, they were just pointing out the parts that would need to be changed in TOS if they were to use the service. Seems like standard business negotiations.
Perhaps he's idealistic, but he might not be as naive as it seems. If millions of people would send Disney a revised TOS (or any other company whatsoever), they would have a serious problem.
Here is something to try out, just for the fun of it: Read the EULAs and TOS when you buy or lease a product, make changes to the contract, and then send the changes back to the company with the note that you do not agree with the original contract, and do all of this within a short period after purchase. Some people in their legal department will probably hate you, but the worst thing they can do is keeping you from using the product, in case of which they'll have to pay you back the full price.
Should work great with software and all kinds of content where you're not given a complete contract to sign before buying the product. (Obscure links and small print on the packaging doesn't count.) Now if only enough people would do that with Sony products...