Kim Dotcom

http://kim.com/

by _ikke_ • 14 years ago

101 86 14 years ago

kim.com

ari_elle5• 14 years ago

All that i can say to this post is "?"

Zombieball• 14 years ago

Not sure who Kim Dotcom is?

ari_elle5• 14 years ago

Not sure why an entry called "Kim Dotcom" linking to kim.com - a site that most that are interested in the Megaupload case already know and have visited numerous time - has to be on this site.

Nothing even has changed - i found no new information about anything on his site except maybe a new video (and i wasn't on it for at least a few weeks).

So i don't get it. I am surprised by the number of comments and up-votes for this imo completely worthless HN entry

ryanpers• 14 years ago

MY NEW HERO

enr• 14 years ago

those three letter .com addresses are sexy.

creativityhurts• 14 years ago

I wonder how much he paid for that.

true_religion• 14 years ago

Considering the page is 'powered' by Instra.com, a domain sales site, I bet you he paid $0 for it and has an arrangement to use it in exchange for the publicity that it will give them.

w1ntermute• 14 years ago

No matter what people say about the legality/morality of his businesses, I love this guy's oversized personality. He's one of those guys that keeps things interesting on the internet.

nicholassmith• 14 years ago

You need the characters to make it a richer story, he's definitely a character.

oz• 14 years ago

Indeed. The libertarian in me rejoices at the 'one man against the world' dynamic of his story.

kahawe2• 14 years ago

So you love people who since the 90s have been repeatedly caught and found guilty of fraud, insider trading, piracy and who cut deals with the police by turning in former friends and associates?

This is the side of kim people seem to have collectively forgotten over the last 10 or so years in which he has disappeared and was making tons of money from mu.

This is nothing but the same stunt yet again.

mattparlane• 14 years ago

The only reason he doesn't like copyright law is because it stands in the way of him living the life he wants.

This guy absolutely disgusts me -- he doesn't give a shit about free speech, he just wants to live in his enormous mansion and eat far too much food and drive expensive cars and show off his trophy wife.

mibbitier2• 14 years ago

The case has big implications for any site that hosts user generated content.

If users start using say github, to share movies, will the github founders be whisked away to jail and the site shut down without any due process?

aw3c2• 14 years ago

the difference is that everyone knows that Github is for free software whereas everyone knows that Megaupload was for copyright infringement.

neotek3• 14 years ago

At the risk of crying "ad hominem", can you explain why his personal desires render his claims invalid?

negativity• 14 years ago

The only reason Hollywood loves copyright law is because it provides a way for all of them to live the life they want.

These people absolutely disgust me -- they don't give a shit about their loyal fans, they just want to live in their enormous mansions and eat far too much food and drive expensive cars and show off their sham Hollywood tabloid marriages.

Tyrannosaurs2• 14 years ago

Your enemy's enemy isn't necessarily your friend though. It's possible to have issues with them both.

xtracto• 14 years ago

> eat far too much food and drive expensive

It saddens me so much that news.ycombinator has lowered to this kind of comments. And the fact that they are up-voted show the problem of the eternal September.

jopt3• 14 years ago

This attitude is very interesting. In my reading, you take offence that Kim Dotcom supports free speech only because it is in his personal interest. Similarly (I find), many shy away from defending The Pirate Bay as soon as their advertising revenue is mentioned.

Is free speech only good insofar as it can be used as a tool to create an ethically prudent world? Does free speech lose its appeal if it's invoked by Kim Dotcom and not only by rms?

aes2564• 14 years ago

More often than not people have a vested interest in advocating for free speech. In this case, that interest is obvious; Kim Dotcom is facing criminal charges for facilitating copyright infringement, and is trying to characterize the issue as one of free speech.

He's trying to lump the Megaupload takedown alongside SOPA, PIPA, etc. to ride the wave of discontent that challenged those pieces of legislation.

It's cynical and insincere.

praptak• 14 years ago

But it is the copyright law that made MegaUpload necessary. If not for the copyright law, we'd just download stuff off each other's homepages for free, no reason to pay Kim or anyone else.

klibertp2• 14 years ago

Last submitted story about him (Inside the mansion - and mind - of Kim Dotcom IIRC) seemed to imply that he is on a diet now... Just saying :)

cema2• 14 years ago

  he doesn't give a shit about free speech,
  he just wants to live in his enormous mansion
  and eat far too much food and drive expensive cars
  and show off his trophy wife

And what on earth does not give him a right to do that?

marban• 14 years ago

not as jaw-dropping as the good old kimble.org but still. anyone who remembers it?

terhechte• 14 years ago

Yeah, I remember it. Back then I was impressed. I knew Flash, but he really put it to the job. Though that impression didn't last long I've to admit.

rsingla• 14 years ago

I'm not sure this ought to be on HN. To me, it just seems like a guy's throwing a hissy fit. Publicly.

ari_elle5• 14 years ago

(that was exactly why i instantly wrote the comment All that i can say to this post is "?". I don't know for sure, but i can't imagine that this is the first time for his site to be here and there is no valuable information at all that could be considered new...)

michaelkscott• 14 years ago

Well, you can always use your flagging powers.

dangrossman• 14 years ago

He, and most other HN users, have no flag button. That has a high karma threshold.

jagermo2• 14 years ago

I recommend his entry at attrition. This guy is a charlatan, always has been. http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/kimble/

For those with German skills here are some of his posts at the de.org.ccc Usenet http://nopaste.me/paste/1978187886501000e66203f

witoldc2• 14 years ago

I remember the first time I learned of Kim - 10+ years ago.

From the early days, his questionable 'projects', his legal troubles back home, his money making schemes, him defrauding people on BMW M5 forums, etc. Then I didn't hear about him for 10 years.

When his name came out during the Megaupload uproar, I immediately remembered his name and his antics and without knowing anything about Megaupload I knew he was guilty as sin just based on his record.

neotek3• 14 years ago

>without knowing anything about Megaupload I knew he was guilty as sin just based on his record.

What a frightening way to think.

fusiongyro2• 14 years ago

Agreed, but while people can change, they usually don't. Doesn't justify what governments have done to him though.

witoldc2• 14 years ago

I judge people based on their past actions. Not on their hypothetical potential. Kim has a history of fraud and questionable activities going back _decades_. If that makes my way of thinking frightening to you, so be it.

mpclark• 14 years ago

With respect, not at all. Just like it is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, continually giving this guy the benefit of the doubt is naive.

mibbitier2• 14 years ago

Please don't ever do jury duty.

emmapersky2• 14 years ago

This is bizarre. Why is this aimed so squarely at "Mr President" - The Obama Administration was anti SOPA, whereas the republican senate was behind it. Sure, the reality is probably more subtle than this, but if you must pick a single entity, the Republican Senate seems like a better target. Less sexy I guess.

emmapersky2• 14 years ago

I'm even more confused having spent 20 minutes consuming the bizarro content on this site.

This appears to be an anti-obama website though he isn't making it directly clear. Sure, we should question our elected officials, and hold them against the standards on which they were elected (Change in Obama's case), and that's what he seems to be doing in the first section.

I'm just not sure why he is taking some of the goodwill he might have built up and directing it at Obama. I might be wrong, but I suspect he would be much worse off under a Romney Administration.

wildgift3• 14 years ago

Logic and politics don't often go together, at least on the surface. Behind the scenes, there's a logic.

illuminate• 14 years ago

You're assuming logic. He's trying to stir up attention for his personal brand, and his associated products. I don't think he necessarily believes that Obama/Biden had anything direct to do with the action, but playing up that angle gets him tons of PR.

rorrr• 14 years ago

> whereas the republican senate was behind it

SOPA had

19 republican sponsors and supporters

35 democratic sponsors and supporters

https://projects.propublica.org/sopa/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_Congresspersons_who...

wildgift3• 14 years ago

It was a bipartisan effort carried out mainly for the entertainment industry. The reason why there were more Dems is largely because the business is in California, and is heavily unionized. The employees in the entertainment industry tend to see piracy as something that costs them money and jobs.

creativityland• 14 years ago

http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-joe-biden-ordered-the-meg...

http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-mpaa-riaa-corrupted-the-u...

wildgift3• 14 years ago

That's interesting. Upvoted.

My sense is that this takedown is supposed to send a message to the larger internet media companies. The small ones could be easy pickings, but the big ones like Netflix, Apple and Google are what the entertainment industry really cares about - and as they see their markets being transformed, they will fight with whatever they've got. And one thing they've got is the law and political experience.

They picked on Kim because he's an unlikeable character. He's rich and arrogant, and his alignment with hip hop and youth culture won't win him supporters in DC or in governments.

aes2564• 14 years ago

Whether these claims are true or not, I would take everything Kim Dotcom or TorrentFreak say with a pinch of salt.

When one is reporting what the other is saying, make that three pinches of salt.

sadlyNess• 14 years ago

The dont-vote-for-Obama bit reminds me of George Bush's "pre-war intelligence failure" fiasco.

jopt3• 14 years ago

I speculate: As this is an election year, playing the Obama angle will generate interest.

antsam2• 14 years ago

Kim needs to put out an album already.

ari_elle5• 14 years ago

Yeah, because it's exactly the

-) create a simple beat with maybe a slight variation when the chorus comes up, which takes 1 minute with todays software

-) fix missing singing talent through studio production / auto-tune / hearing exact singing line in headphones / professional software

-) don't think complicated: 4/4, some simple musical hooklines, lyrics about some stupid ass shit

popchart garbage that most of the world listens to. Kim's music videos are exactly the prove (if we would need any :/) that today's music is solely about producing, not about self expression, nice rhythmical designs, creativity or art in general...

antsam2• 14 years ago

I wish I could have marked my comment as sarcasm. (Kim is a terrible singer and approaching Trump levels of annoying)

Nux• 14 years ago

Meh, can't see his new site. What's wrong with latest Firefox ESR? The website doesn't look like too advanced (from what I can see in Opera), just a bunch of embeds. He should declare war on retarded web designers as well.

http://img.nux.ro/3jF-kim.com.png

mhd• 14 years ago

Quite fitting, he seems to have an ego that would require Roland Emmerichs' most widescreen lens setup.

digitalengineer2• 14 years ago

Regardless of what you might think of Kim, his personality, his wealth fact is the US administration broke it's own (and international) law to take him out. The administrations' style is one of intimidation and aggression. Laws are for regular people it seems. Kim was left without access to his own funds / video-footage / hardware so he would not be able to set up an effective defense.

This entire ordeal tells us more about the current administration than Kim.

lostlogin• 14 years ago

Please don't spare the New Zealand government. It is shameful how far politicians and police here went out of their way to try and impress. Pathetic, weak and disgusting. We have laws too, and a fair few were broken by NZ agencies.

beedogs2• 14 years ago

This seems to be the case for any country when faced with US pressure over copyright issues, whether it's agreeing to one-sided treaties which serve only to protect US content owners, or working with US agencies to track down and apprehend "criminal" infringers anywhere they happen to be in the world.

Everyone just does what America asks of them. It's shocking.

ecliptic• 14 years ago

I think Kim knows he is a joke, too bad HN readers don't.

kahawe2• 14 years ago

This is just like his old kimble.org page... big words and I promise you: nothing remotely justifying it actually behind it. He has been trolling JUST like this in the 90s and looks like he is using his current publicity to do the same now.

In the end it is ALL about making money for him and it always has been. He has been doing the same "business" back in the 90s and famously turned over former associates to the police to cut deals.

augusto_hp• 14 years ago

I miss GlaDOS, anyone else?

rbn2• 14 years ago

This guy is the biggest phoney ever. He made his fortune from piracy. I'm all for freedom and justice but don't pretend you are some saint.

brador2• 14 years ago

Isn't taking from the rich and giving to the poor a key activity of a saint?

I may or may not agree with the guys views, or activities, but he has helped a lot of poor people consume a lot of media they would not otherwise have had access to.

Jgrubb2• 14 years ago

With all respect,

a) I don't think that truly poor people have the means to be spending their time "consuming media". That definitely falls at least close to "first world problem".

b) Despite the RIAA, which is an organization that deserves every bit of the scorn it gets, piracy mainly hurts artists, writers, and other "content creators". Creatives like me and a lot of other people on here. The suits that the RIAA really represents have plenty of other means to feed themselves.

I don't know how this guy made his money, but he ain't no saint.

wangarific• 14 years ago

You're confusing a saint and fictional Robin Hood. You can't steal/take from someone just because they're rich.

rbn2• 14 years ago

Kim is massive attention seeker. He wants to be a hero and lots of people think he is some kind of rogue warrior going against the man.

The truth is that he is going to milk this to the very last cent for all of his product launches. You saw his house and his lifestyle, do you think the Pirate Bay guys live like that? Even before being released, he was saying the media companies are afraid of his new site MegaBox. Ridiculous... . He has a long history of criminal activities of all kinds, just look at his wiki page.

He is literally "A Big Fat Phoney".

jagermo2• 14 years ago

the worst thing about this whole megaupload fubar is that Mr Schmitz gets airtime again. I had hoped that he would have disappeared for good. He was an annoying fake back when he only operated in Germany and didn't get any better over the years.

Kim Dotcom

Related Stories