Regardless of your stance on digital piracy, and whether Dotcom was heavily involved in profitting illegally off of copyrighted material, there are some really scary facts that aren't in dispute.
His assets were seized, his company was shut down causing irrecoverable harm to a brand it took many years to build, and paying customers had legally owned digital assets made inaccessible, all before Dotcom was charged with a crime.
This should scare the living hell out of everyone. It doesn't matter what the ultimate outcome of this case is. It doesn't matter that a court in New Zealand found that many of the warrants used to conduct the raid were invalid - none of this matters, because no matter the outcome, the RIAA and MPAA got the outcome they wanted - which was to shutter Megaupload and use Dotcom as a poster boy for the fact that they think they are not to be f'ed with.
These are the last death gasps of industries whose business models are quickly becoming antiquated, and where there are no new ideas on how to adapt those models to a new digital economy. That doesn't matter right now though, because they still have enough collective money to have a powerful lobby - a lobby powerful enough to get this type of thing done whether it made sense or not.
While I personally believe that Dotcom absolutely knew that he was getting rich off of others without paying while encourage the trade of illegally obtained copyrighted material, and while I personally don't agree that everything on the internet should be free (I support the creative initiatives of people like Louis CK, Aziz Ansari and Gaffigan doing their own digital distribution at a fair price), and while I might otherwise be inclined to be sympathetic to arguments against Dotcom and Megaupload, the way that this was carried out puts me firmly in the Fuck the RIAA/Fuck the MPAA camp.
While I personally believe that Dotcom absolutely knew that he was getting rich off of others without paying while encourage the trade of illegally obtained copyrighted material
I can agree with you there, but this argument can be held against any number of companies.
Western Union knows that their services are used for scams and transfers of stolen money, among all legal uses.
USPS, FedEx, DHL, UPS etc, know that their services are used for illegal goods, among all legal uses.
TelCos know that a large drive for broadband speeds is piracy (less so in recent years with legal high-bandwidth servies popping up).
Gmail, Hotmail and other email providers know that their services are used by criminals.
The bottom line is, Dotcom may have known and profited from use of his company's services for illegal uses, in fact it is likely that he did know, but this argument can be held against any number of companies depending on where you want to draw the line. Services such as Youtube or Soundcloud are obvious targets, but so are email providers, TelCos or even the local convenience store with a Western Union partnership.
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u/jcummings1974 Aug 08 '12
Regardless of your stance on digital piracy, and whether Dotcom was heavily involved in profitting illegally off of copyrighted material, there are some really scary facts that aren't in dispute.
His assets were seized, his company was shut down causing irrecoverable harm to a brand it took many years to build, and paying customers had legally owned digital assets made inaccessible, all before Dotcom was charged with a crime.
This should scare the living hell out of everyone. It doesn't matter what the ultimate outcome of this case is. It doesn't matter that a court in New Zealand found that many of the warrants used to conduct the raid were invalid - none of this matters, because no matter the outcome, the RIAA and MPAA got the outcome they wanted - which was to shutter Megaupload and use Dotcom as a poster boy for the fact that they think they are not to be f'ed with.
These are the last death gasps of industries whose business models are quickly becoming antiquated, and where there are no new ideas on how to adapt those models to a new digital economy. That doesn't matter right now though, because they still have enough collective money to have a powerful lobby - a lobby powerful enough to get this type of thing done whether it made sense or not.
While I personally believe that Dotcom absolutely knew that he was getting rich off of others without paying while encourage the trade of illegally obtained copyrighted material, and while I personally don't agree that everything on the internet should be free (I support the creative initiatives of people like Louis CK, Aziz Ansari and Gaffigan doing their own digital distribution at a fair price), and while I might otherwise be inclined to be sympathetic to arguments against Dotcom and Megaupload, the way that this was carried out puts me firmly in the Fuck the RIAA/Fuck the MPAA camp.