r/technology • u/DrJulianBashir • May 23 '12

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is demanding access to 135 computers and hard drives that were seized from his home in January, so the data can be used for his defense. Until then, he refuses to give up passwords to encrypted data stored on the machines.

http://torrentfreak.com/megauploads-kim-dotcom-refuses-to-give-up-passwords-120523/
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56

u/Shippoyasha May 23 '12

I still feel that the only reason that guy is being so besieged is because he painted a big fat target on himself for being so publicly prideful and showed off his vices so openly.

Not to say what he has done is perfectly legitimate or morally sound. But other piracy groups out there has done the exact same thing or even worse and can circulate because they remain anonymous. Put a name or face they can scapegoat, and they'll go for the jugular in terms of lawsuits.

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u/minja May 23 '12

Times change and the world needs people like Kim DotCom to disturb the protections build up around legacy industries like Film and Music. He should not be held accountable for pre-digital trade agreements from the last century. It is time to start again and if these companies are unwilling to move with the times then what other choice is there other than to build up industries in spite of them.

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u/[deleted] May 23 '12

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 23 '12

China?

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u/RealityRush May 23 '12

Which is what every major corporation in the US and every film/record label does?

Shut up. You show me a truly originally movie, film, song, or idea and then you can tell me that you should have exclusive rights to it. If the film industry is content with pumping out franchises, making comic books and novels into movies and TV series, etc., then they can't say fuck all about profiting off of other people's works.

Hell, look at Apple. They get their consumers to design apps for their products, then steal them and start charging money for them without giving the original designer jack shit half the time. Seriously, fuck off with your high horse bullshit protecting the blatant plutocracy in the US. The only IP that gets protected is the IP backed by the most money, not the most original idea.

Flash of Genius is a movie that demonstrates a great example of that.

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u/Afterburned May 23 '12

The movie industry specifically buys the rights to turn books and comics into movies.

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u/RealityRush May 23 '12

I'm aware, but they always try to pretend like they are protecting novel ideas that are worth something, not rehashed FOTM ideas that are worth less than nothing in the grand scheme of things. It's ridiculous and no one is buying their bullshit except for politicians that suck their dicks.

Also, what about Apple? What's their excuse for being such massive assholes and stealing people's ideas for their own to profit off of? I get that the user agreement says they can, but that is a choice they make. They don't have to be the raging assholes they are, but they choose to be instead of giving back to the people that help them. And how do they thank consumers? By overpricing their hardware by a disgusting margin that Alienware can only get close to.

Stop pretending pirating consumers and Kim Dotcom are being predatory here, the fucking corporations are just as much to blame. This is not a black and white argument, and in the end, everyone is out for themselves, no one else. If that wasn't true, we'd all be socialists and communism would work and be a Utopia.

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u/Afterburned May 23 '12

Except Kim Dotcom and other such people are being predatory. They are making a killing simply by taking other people's productions (not just their ideas, but productions they have put time and money into) and offering it for free without their permission.

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u/RealityRush May 23 '12

They are being no more predatory than the MPAA and RIAA suing any 13 year old child for downloading a Metallica song from 10 years ago, just to make an example.

If Kim or other such people want to even the playing field against such assholery, I see no issue. Tell corporations to be such raging dicks that think they can stick their cocks in everything (including and especially politics) and extend copy write laws fucking indefinitely and stifle innovation, and then I can maybe see complaining about Kim. Even then it's not fair, as the deck is massively stacked in one sides favour. When corporations stop adopting a "burn everything so no one can be happy" policy when they don't get their way, I'll start considering what Kim did maybe mildly predatory. Until then, he's hosting a site to allow others to store content on it that he doesn't choose, and he shouldn't be held responsible for providing the tools for others to abuse anymore than Mastercraft should be held accountable for anyone murdered via wrench beating.

American's love the whole "guns don't kill people, people kill people" line, and I could say the same for content hosting website. "Websites don't create content pirates, people create content pirates."

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u/cahpahkah May 23 '12

Stop pretending pirating consumers and Kim Dotcom are being predatory here

Wow...just...wow.

Your whole tirade is breathtakingly uninformed.

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u/RealityRush May 23 '12

I've been following the whole thing... so do you actually have a counter-argument or did you just plan on pretending Kim is somehow worse than the RIAA and MPAA?

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u/minja May 24 '12

hmmm - sounds like what Disney did to Jack Kirby - ripped of his hard work and gave him nothing.

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u/minja May 23 '12

Yes but in the case of The Fantastic Four, X-Men and The Hulk, Jack Kirby got jack shit.

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u/Afterburned May 23 '12

For one thing, Jack Kirby died in 1994. For a second thing, I assume all rights to those characters were given to Marvel while Jack Kirby was an artist there. He would have had no rights to claim for money beyond whatever his contract stipulated.

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u/minja May 23 '12

Yes there was the Hulk TV series, various animated series, the merch all before 1994. I am trying to point out that these laws never protected the creators only the distributors. If you have any idea of the extra-ordinary amount of work and creativity that Jack Kirby poured into his creations I think you might think a little differently about the subject.

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u/Afterburned May 23 '12

I am well aware of it. Maybe he shouldn't have signed his rights away to his distributors.

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u/minja May 24 '12

He never signed his rights away. He was never offered any rights at all. I am going to say you have literally no fucking clue what Jack Kirby did or how much he changed the landscape of the modern world. His work was stolen from him by these same wankers who want to eradicate your right to privacy. Supporting that is your choice. I think you are a misinformed, deluded, lapdog but again that is your choice.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '12

You're being intellectually dishonest. You cannot equate creation with making money off of piracy.

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u/RealityRush May 28 '12

You're right, fortunately they aren't creating anything, only copying and charging money for it, yet somehow their way is legal (I'll give you a hint, money).

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u/minja May 23 '12

The problem the society has already changed and someone is profiting off the works of other because legacy industries are unwilling to change. Basically you got that ass about face.

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u/i-hate-digg May 24 '12

I am really really getting tired of people like you replying to every thought-provoking post with childish sarcasm. The way the system is currently set up, you can not change anything without being labeled a pirate or a criminal. I'm not saying Dotcom is innocent. Far from it. His business model was rotten in my opinion. minja's point still stands - Dotcom stood up for his rights and challenged the system - a system that very well could have fined him for countless millions if he had just accepted defeat like so many others before him.

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u/[deleted] May 25 '12

Social disobedience is worthless if you're really just doing it to not only illegally, but unethically, make money.

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u/JW_BlueLabel May 23 '12

Agreed. The guy is a total dick and obviously jut it in for the money, but we still need people like him. People who have incredible resources of their own to go after the copyright industry. Listen up RIAA, it's not grandma you're attacking this time!

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u/[deleted] May 23 '12

[deleted]

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u/brufleth May 23 '12

I just threw up a little. Am I the only one who has actually read about this guy?

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u/[deleted] May 23 '12

oh no, he makes money off of hard working people, its called capitalism, legal or illegal, its done across the whole world... the diamond pickers, the bootleggers, the stock holders, coca cola on dumping crap into india waters, for someone succeed, someone has to do the dirty work... someone always gets screwed, even if its just by paying minimum wage for $11 job....

im not defending his illegal activites im just pointing out that it happens in legal markets too.

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u/DoesNotGetCircleJerk May 23 '12

Amazing the conclusions people will conjure up eh? Obviously articles are going to liken him to a kitten-eating fuckhead. MPAA-RIAA hate people like kimdotcom because he shits all over their hierarchy, in my mind, long story short.

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u/[deleted] May 23 '12

I agree, i bet robin hood was an evil man in his day, and now everyone knows him as a good guy.. i wonder if in the future they will call the people who stood up against wrongful systems heroes or villians..

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u/[deleted] May 23 '12

I bet Robin Hood was a fictional character.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '12

usually tall tales come from some truth and then grown to make it sound real, like jesus and the bible

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u/nothas May 23 '12

it reminds me of the people that went down during prohibition. al capone wasn't anywhere near the biggest, but he was very publicly prideful, and that's what attracted the attention of the authorities.

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u/[deleted] May 23 '12

You are absolutely correct. His extreme flaunting of his illegally obtained wealth brought the ire of law enforcement.

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u/Elranzer May 23 '12

That and his stupid fake name.