[Infowarrior] - Mega-Launch: a fake FBI raid, dancing girls—oh, and human rights!

[Richard Forno]

Mega-Launch: a fake FBI raid, dancing girls—oh, and human rights!

Kim Dotcom launches his super-private cloud storage—with a wild display.

by Joe Mullin - Jan 20 2013, 6:23am EST

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/mega-launch-a-fake-fbi-raid-dancing-girls-oh-and-human-rights/

Kim Dotcom may see himself as being at war with Hollywood, but the man has quite a sense of theatrics himself. The show he put on for the world tonight at his mansion outside Auckland was audacious and loud, featuring a Maori-themed musical performance by Tiki Taane, a raid re-enactment complete with helicopters marked "FBI," and dancing girls clad in military-style dress (but with miniskirts). That's how Dotcom announced his new service, Mega, to the world.

The service kicked off less than 24 hours ago, one year—to the minute—after Dotcom's house was raided and his old file-sharing service, Megaupload, was shut down.

"Sometimes good things come out of terrible events," Kim told the gathered audience of a few hundred people. "If it wasnt for a giant comet hitting the Earth, we would still be surrounded by angry dinosaurs—hungry, too!" Kim smiled. "And if it wasn't for the raid, we wouldn't have Mega."

He recapped how his company was seized, lamenting how it was shut down without the opportunity to make an argument to a judge. "Communication was taken offline, and free speech was attacked!" Dotcom  said, in a staccato light German accent. But the seizures have opened a new public debate, he said. "The Internet belongs to no man, or industry, or government!" he said, to applause. "No matter how many politicians you lobby, no matter how many SOPAs you put together in Congress, you will not succeed in efforts to take control of our Internet!"

Having never watched Dotcom actually speak before, I was impressed by the event. Mixing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a techno soundtrack, all in the service of "Internet freedom"—it's quite a  trick, and it takes a special kind of guy to pull it off.

Encryption as "refuge from the eye of the community"

So why is Mega going to be the "privacy company?" Because that's the value at great risk in the internet age, says Dotcom.

"Privacy is a basic human right, but it has become increasingly difficult to communicate privately," said Dotcom. "More and more companies are collecting data about you and your behavior. ISPs are inspecting the data you transfer, on behalf of the content industry. Hosting companies sell their decommissioned services and hard drives with your data still on it... the US government is investing billions into massive spy clouds."

Privacy isn't just a personal or selfish interest—it's a value vital to keeping power in check, he argued. "It's about the human need for refuge from the eye of the community. Privacy maintains balance between the individual and the state."

At that point, perhaps Dotcom believed the audience needed a little reminder about the power of the "state." Because at this point in his talk, helicopters marked with "FBI" on the sides flew over the gathering. A voice boomed over a loudspeaker: "This is a crime scene and an illegal gathering!"

Dotcom was quickly surrounded by his "guards," six women in sexy military-style miniskirts, while trucks rolled up to the audience. "Stop this madness!" shouted Dotcom. "Let's all be friends."

And then—you knew it was coming—the whole thing turned into a dance number. "Now everybody jump, jump jump—and pump your first like this," shouted the MC.

Then everything settled down into a sort of straightforward corporate Q&A session. The team behind Mega was introduced. First, CTO Mathias Ortmann, chief marketing officer Finn Batato, and Bram van der Kolk—all arrested during the raid last year—were trotted up onstage.

Next came Tony Lentino, the new CEO of Mega, who is also a major investor who has helped Dotcom through tough times—paying the rent on his house, for example, when he was in prison.

Dotcom describes how he'll stretch out the "long white cloud"

First question from the press: Will Mega be a "Dropbox killer?"

"I think there can be hundreds of competitors [in cloud storage], and they can all do well," said Dotcom. "Some people won't want encryption, and don't care about it. I don't want to see myself as a killer of anything. Ultimately we hope to list our company at the New Zealand stock exchange."

What are the consequences for New Zealand?

"We are going to hire back all Megaupload employees who want to come back, and in addition will hire staff in New Zealand. We are a New Zealand company, New Zealand has been good to us. They saw there is something fishy about this whole case, and we want to give back. Over the coming years, we will hopefully create a few hundred jobs."

What about copyright infringement?

Same answer as before. "We take things down!" said Dotcom. "We take things down. We did that with Megaupload, and went even further [by offering copyright owners direct access to the site]."

"There's a very robust DMCA takedown process on Mega," chimed in Ira Rothken, Dotcom's main US-based lawyer. "There's an automated form, as well as an email process. It meets or exceeds the industry standard for takedowns."

At the end of the questions, Mega's relationship to New Zealand, the host country it looks like he may be bound to for some time, came up again. "This government was too easily convinced of this case [against Megaupload]," said Dotcom in answer to an early question. "I'm not a criminal and I've done nothing wrong. I would like to be an integral part of the New Zealand community. The Maori call New Zealand the 'long white cloud'—I've just made it a little bit longer."

And with that, the questions were over—and the bar was open.

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Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.