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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.
The studios wanted to have a legitimate relationship going so they could have some leverage or ability for one on one discussions about the pesky little problem of rampant piracy on his site.
What did you expect Kim to say, that he preferred doing business exclusively with illegal file sharers?
No, this doesn't make sense. If there's some guy selling copies of your work on the local market, and he's an amazing salesman, it's not hypochritical of you to approach him and ask if he wants to sell the real thing instead. If that deal falls through then it's still not hypochritical to go report him to the police. And in any event, one party being a hypochrite bears no weight on the legality or illegality of the other party's actions. I'm certainly not going to stand up and argue in favour of MPAA/RIAA as I think they're vampiric entities that need to be ended, but like GP I feel I'm missing whatever point Dotcom is making.
So? Chris Dodd is a fraud, you don't see him being arrested. Nobody is even investigating him, even after he openly admitted to congressional bribery... because the people who would need to start the investigation are the same people who he bribed.
Let's face it, Kim Dotcom is a fraud, but so are the people he's fighting against. Kim is guilty of not bribing the right people. He should have used some of his massive profits to bribe politicians like Chris Dodd of MPAA did, then he wouldn't be in this situation. In a world of frauds, I root for the newcomer fraud.
I agree, but I think you make it sound even more difficult than it is. You imply only wealthy donors could fund art, These days that simply isn't the case, enough less wealthy people can also fund art just as effectively (for example, a musician can make all their money by performing concerts, no single wealthy donor, just a theatre full of average citizens.)
Check out http://vodo.net/ for a distribution network. They've got some cool shit on there like Pioneer One and L5, stuff that's free to download and distribute. All they ask is that you do so under the Creative Commons License and not remove the imbedded link screens so the creators can fund their next project. It and some of the other alternatives to big studio contracts like Kickstart are things I'm looking into for something I'm working on a bit here...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.