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Interviews: Ask Kim Dotcom a Question
He was the founder of Megaupload, its successor Mega, New Zealand's Internet Party, and is the world's greatest Modern Warfare 3 player. He was born Kim Schmitz, but you know him better as Kim Dotcom. While he's had a number of run-ins with the law over the years, The U.S. government is currently charging him with criminal copyright violation and racketeering in association with his Megaupload site. Dotcom has recently won a court battle in New Zealand blocking the U.S. from seizing $67 million in assets. Even though he has a lot on his plate, Kim has agreed to take some time to answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
how did he turned into such a fat slob?
Was it worth it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Do you foresee an eventual end game to copyright infringement legislation in the future, or a moment when copyright holders throw their hands in the air and give up for good?
We're holding a conference on file sharing in Baltimore later this summer and we were wondering if you'd like to be a guest speaker?
Thanks.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
After reading the first dozen questions, how many million years would you say it would be before you ever agree to answer questions from slashdot posters again?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I've seen some criticism from open source advocates and hackers that Mega can't be trusted because the source isn't available.
What assurance could you give someone to the point that their files may not be kept secret while hosted on your platform?
You created the "internet party" as a fight against privacy laws being tramped in your adopted country, helped shape policy and pushed for "digital rights" not just for yourself but others.
Yet your "party" formed an alliance with the "mana party" who once claimed that broadband was stealing the soul of the country and sought compensation from the Govt, a party who has never gotten more the 1.30% of the popular vote, Nationalisation of monopolies and duopolies (which means they will never get any business votes, and which constricts their only policy of "for the people" (aren't people allowed to make profit?)
I was absolutely with the "internet party" and digital rights, until they made a coalition with the "mana" party.
Was this a choice that you had a part in for the betterment of the political party you bankrolled, or was this out of control?
What is your opinion on morality, ethics, and religion?
Were you born a criminal sociopath and con-artist, or did you evolve into one?
He was born a criminal, just like you, just like me, just like all of us.
As a follow up, what are your thoughts on the death of Travon Martin, what are your feelings about Islam (both radical and non-radical), and which is the one true text editor, vi or EMACS?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Did you achieve your rank all by yourself, or were there other people you shared your account with?
What is your favorite...
-Game type? (Team Deathmatch, Search and Destroy, etc)
-Loadout
-Perks
Any other comments or stories you'd like to share about your COD experience?
Can I have a million dollars? I have no story or noble cause. I just think a million dollars would make my day more amazing.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
What are your thoughts on the conflict of laws between jurisdictions with specific regard to how countries like the U.S. can claim jurisdiction over the actions of people and business in other countries if U.S. citizens seek to use the internet to purchase or use services not available in their own country?
Is there a market in the world for strong cryptographic file sharing? Meaning only the end users control their private keys and the "network" just connects users -- it never knows the keys.
Or does that only work on the small scale such as one user sharing some files with a few friends. If that same user shared those files with ten thousand friends, then would the sharing would be public as the keys would be "leaked" by nature of lots of people having them? (And thus those files could be examined for copyright infringement.)
What do you teach your children about fairness, morality, and legal authorities?
So you've recently taken a foray into politics with the formation of the Internet Party. What are your thoughts about what's needed to actually improve New Zealand politics? One of the stated goals of the Internet Party is to review the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which has recently become a hot topic in the US as well. What are your thoughts on the TPP?
----- obSig
Why do you think the Internet Party didn't do as well as hoped?
Learn to love Alaska
What would be your proposed copyright ruleset, so that content producers still can live off their creations?
Were you born a criminal sociopath and con-artist, or did you evolve into one?
You may personally dislike the guy, but running a public cloud storage service isn't supposed to be illegal. The service had substantial, non-infringing uses, which was previously the litmus test for whether a product exists solely to enable copyright infringement. Otherwise, we wouldn't have things like photocopiers, tape recorders, MP3 players, VCRs, DVRs, cameras, and pretty much every form of blank media.
Megaupload was used quite extensively for storing open source projects and homebrew Android ROMs. That alone should've demonstrated the service had substantial, non-infringing uses.
I understand that Megaupload was allegedly not acting on DMCA takedown requests as promptly as they should've. Still, that seems like something that should be handled with fines, not going all Gestapo by seizing the domain and servers. You wouldn't torch a restaurant to the ground for failing a health inspection, would you?
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I've seen many a file-sharing site shutter its doors or become overly restrictive after even the merest hint of action by law enforcement officials, doing things like requiring logins to upload or download, sometimes even requiring people to sign in via social media (4Shared). The end result is that a lot of these places become borderline unusable.
Unlike a lot of those website operators, you have personally been dragged out of your home by law enforcement and had actions taken against MegaUpload by the United States government. It could be argued that you have more to fear as a "face" of file-sharing that the Department of Justice would want to make an example out of than pretty much any other file-sharing or torrent tracker operator out there (apart from maybe the Pirate Bay founders).
So my question is this: What drives you to keep going with Mega after having such things happen to you? What kind of mindset does it take to (metaphorically) keep spitting in the face of the United States government after having them raid your house by proxy?
isn't the basic notion of copying or making available someone else's works, for which they fully wish to have a copyright, ethically wrong?
You tell me.
Person A writes a song and plays it on the radio.
Scenario 1
Person B hears it, likes it, and wishes to play it on the piano at home. He listens to it a few times, figures out the melody, etc (1) Is this ethically wrong?
Scenario 2,3,4
Person B hears it, likes it, and wishes to learn to play it on his piano at home. He's not as good as the person B in scenario 1 though and can't figure it out.
Person C however figures it it out, rights down a piano arrangement on sheet music for Person B to use Is that unethical? He realizes lots of people would like his sheet music so he posts it online. Is that unethical? Can the original artists wish that the arrangement not be distributed have force?
Scenario 4. ... 75 years now? What if the original artist wants it to last 100 years. Is it unethical to copy his music after the copyright expires. Sure it would be LEGAL... but it still violates his -wishes-.
Copyright is what
Scenario 5
What if he wishes to transfer copyright to an incorporated trust that lasts forever and the trust as the new copyright owner wishes for the copyright to last forever... is the basic notion of copying or making available the work, even 500 years from now, given the trust still exists and still fully wishes that you not copy it... is it ethically wrong to copy it?