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Kim Dotcom Announces New Bitcoin Venture For Content Uploaders To Earn Money (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the further-expansion dept.

Infamous New Zealand-based internet mogul Kim Dotcom plans to launch a Bitcoin payments system for users to sell files and video streaming as he fights extradition to the United States for criminal copyright charges. From a report on Reuters: The German-born entrepreneur, who is wanted by U.S. law enforcement on copyright and money laundering allegations related to his now-defunct streaming site Megaupload, announced his new venture called 'Bitcontent' in a video posted on YouTube this week. "You can create a payment for any content that you put on the internet... you can share that with your customers, with the interest community and, boom, you are basically in business and can sell your content," Dotcom said in the video. He added that Bitcontent would eventually allow businesses, such as news organizations, to earn money from their entire websites. He did not provide a launch date. Dotcom did not provide details on how Bitcontent would differ from existing Bitcoin operations or how it would help news organizations make money beyond existing subscription payment options.

38 comments

  1. Am I the only one thinking it? by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    "What crooked scheme did he come up with this time?"

    Quite seriously, did he ever even try a business that isn't at least shady if not outright illegal?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Am I the only one thinking it? by OverlordQ · · Score: 1

      Considering he made all his money from screwing over other people? No.

      --
      Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    2. Re:Am I the only one thinking it? by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Funny

      Al Capone announces a new dividend program for people willing to stick bottles of gin in the trunk of the car and drive them across from Canada. Totally legit and totally risk-free!

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:Am I the only one thinking it? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Dotcom = Bust

    4. Re:Am I the only one thinking it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Like all his other ideas, the illegal part of the scheme is done by individual people choosing to do illegal things. Kinda like all the scams on craigslist and all the copyrighted stuff on youtube.

    5. Re: Am I the only one thinking it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suspect he's trying to monetize on torrent sites somehow.

    6. Re:Am I the only one thinking it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      remember Kimvestments under his old moniker?

    7. Re:Am I the only one thinking it? by admin7087 · · Score: 2

      I don't think so at all. Mega is awesome, and of course he's the planner behind it even though it's his wife's company. I haven't found anything comparable to Mega yet in terms of usability, similar better known services like Dropbox are way worse in almost every respect. If this new venture is anything like Mega, then it's going to be great.

      It's kind of bizarre that the US is still successful in framing Megaupload as shady while Youtube always was and still is by far the largest copyright infringer on the planet and makes shitloads of money from it.

    8. Re:Am I the only one thinking it? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I was pondering the offer, but then decided to throw my money off the bridge and at least see the funny green slips fly. I think I got more out of it than most of the people who gave him money.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    9. Re:Am I the only one thinking it? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Youtube made a deal with content owners. Kim has never been one willing to share his loot.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. I'm really starting to like this guy. by BlueCoder · · Score: 2

    That's all I have to say.

    1. Re:I'm really starting to like this guy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      spoken like a Trump supporter.

    2. Re: I'm really starting to like this guy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spoken like a faggot.

  3. Sounds like LBRY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hasn't this been done already?

    1. Re:Sounds like LBRY by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      It sounds like the "easy 20%" of LBRY to me. So, none of the hard (but really interesting) features.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  4. It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by Baron_Yam · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Generally speaking, a 'Bitcoin payment system' isn't. You pay a middle man money for 'bitcoins', the middle man pays a vendor with your money (less their overhead).

    For appearances, they'll handle direct bitcoin deposits and withdrawals, but the real business is all good old cash and the bitcoin part is pretend. (Note: this is often useful for claiming hacks and loss of client funds)

    You'll still get hit with exchange rate differences, and you can bet the payment processor isn't taking a bath on Bitcoin fluctuations, so there will be something in the TOS about your account being settled in real currency as calculated at some point in the transaction process that is favourable to the processor.

    On the other hand, once you've handed over your real money, you don't have to deal with Bitcoin transaction issues, encryption keys, etc. Because you're not really using Bitcoin.

    You get BINO, Bitcoin In Name Only. Because if it was really Bitcoin, it wouldn't fucking work.

    1. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by Troed · · Score: 0

      Your comment seems to have nothing to do with the article, and a lot to do with your own misconceptions about Bitcoin.

      --
      it's in my head
    2. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      >Your comment seems to have nothing to do with the article, and a lot to do with your own misconceptions about Bitcoin.

      Your comment seems to have a lot to do with YOUR misconceptions about Bitcoin.

    3. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by Troed · · Score: 1

      Really? I've done public presentations on it since 2010. In what way do you believe Kim Dotcom's described venture wouldn't work completely within the Bitcoin network? Please be specific as to how it applies to what's described in this article.

      --
      it's in my head
    4. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      And your comment seems to have a lot to do with YOUR misconceptions about Dogecoin.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    5. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by Baron_Yam · · Score: 0

      Awesome. So, you've either gone full cultist or you have no morals and are fine encouraging the growth of the market so you can continue to leech off the rubes.

      Either way you're not much of a human being.

    6. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by PRMan · · Score: 1

      This is totally false. Bitcoin absolutely works. Just because they use a payment processor to avoid fluctuations doesn't mean that they can't instantly take payments for content from every country on earth the instant it goes up. What's wrong with a worldwide direct sales market for artists? Sounds great to me.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    7. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by SinisterEVIL · · Score: 1

      None of what you wrote is correct. Just so you know.

    8. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by AnthonywC · · Score: 1

      You do realize that blockchain transaction is on the public ledger that can be checked in near real-time?

    9. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by Troed · · Score: 1

      I think your inability to point out any of the things I asked for, which would've been valid criticism of the article/subject in question, ends the thread nicely.

      --
      it's in my head
    10. Re:It probably has little to do with Bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's so strange, how some people desperately need new ideas to fail. Is it all just laziness? Is it that much easier to hate something, than it is to learn it?

  5. DMCA issues and take downs by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    DMCA issues and take downs how are they going to work that?

    1. Re: DMCA issues and take downs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder about this too because Kim Dotcom keeps mentioning that it's an "anonymous" platform and also encrypted. One thing he was hinting at before was sort of that the file would be hashed and stored in pieces randomly on hundreds+ hosts/clients. I wonder what control they have to take anything down at that point.

      But in a nutshell on his twitter he basically sees it like YouTube only content creators are paid in bitcoin. I don't think he wants illegal content on this; the media is just spinning it that way. When he created mega file storage a couple years back pirates were angry with him because he was taking down pirated content quite quickly before he lost control of the company. He doesn't want trouble, although he keeps tempting fate.

  6. Elegent way to do micro transactions? by RCourtney · · Score: 1

    Most people will think of the nefarious ways he plans on doing this, but wouldnt this be a rather elegant way of doing micro transactions? I am not sure why micro transactions are not done already on a large scale other than it being a nightmare for the creditcard companies and billing statements so no one has bothered creating the infrastructure to scale it out.

    But, for example, a person could use their credit card to buy $20 worth of bitcoin and then use that little by little at news sites that charge a few cents worth of bitcoins to give access to an article. Or like the old quarter arcade machines where you plop in a bir of coin to play a game for awhile. Or a few cents to directly pay a musician to listen to their latest released song.

    Content creators get paid for what something is actually worth (even if only fractions of a penny) and get their due and people can do that without a huge billing statement listing thousands of micro transactions at the end of each billing cycle.

    1. Re:Elegent way to do micro transactions? by PRMan · · Score: 1

      Exactly. The problem is that dust transactions (pennies) are currently not getting picked up in the Bitcoin ledger, because there is not enough space in the transaction block for them. Miners choose the largest amounts of transaction payments, sometimes which go as high as 50 cents. Obviously, 50 cents is no big deal if you are moving thousands of dollars, but it's a huge deal if you are paying a penny for a listen.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    2. Re:Elegent way to do micro transactions? by s1d3track3D · · Score: 1

      I agree there is a real need for an online micropayments system, especially for musicians and content creators. As pointed out above it's not going to work in Bitcoins or paypal or any other existing online payment system I am aware of.

      "With PayPal Micropayments you’ll pay 5 percent plus 5 cents per transaction (for U.S. accounts)" - Paypal

    3. Re: Elegent way to do micro transactions? by corychristison · · Score: 1

      We definitely need a simple, easy to use method to provide micro transactions.

      The problem is really banking regulations get in the way, as every country is different, and governments want to consider any form of online wallet provider as a bank.

      How I would do it, if regulations wouldn't squash it right away:
      - allow users to add "FunWebMoneyâ" to a deposit account, converted $1 USD to $1 FWMâ.
      - allow merchants to register and receive $FWMâ from users
      - create a really clean, easy to integrate API/Webservice for merchants to use on their sites and apps
      - charge flat rate or volume based fee to merchants to access API/Network

      This is basically what Paypal was trying to do in the beginning. But regulation messed that up.

      Some web services do something like this, but only for their own services (my voip provider comes to mind).

      It would be nice to have a centralized/standardized way to do this world wide, though.

  7. Youtube link by Zargle · · Score: 1

    https://youtu.be/cOGTnNL0Gx0

  8. From the top of Mt. Gox by Drunkulus · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'll wager 400 quatloos on the newcomer.

  9. He should work with something like Bitchute by heathenistics · · Score: 1

    we need to decentralize our P2P commerce exhibit A: https://www.bitchute.com/

  10. Kim needs a Piggie Bank refill by seoras · · Score: 1

    The only thing keeping him out of the US, and entrenched in NZ, is by being able to pay role a never ending cycle of court appeals.
    That gets expensive. Really expensive.
    Only this week I was thinking "haven't heard from Dotcom for a while, I wonder when he's going to launch his next venture to keep his legal fees being paid?"
    Well there you go, he's done it again...

  11. Vaporware by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    This is vaporware, but it makes the nes because there is "Kim Dotcom" in it.

  12. Internet Mogul? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who coined this stupid phrase?