Silicon Valley is the strongest lobby for novelty and innovation. Even it struggles sometimes against the established laws and businesses.
Dropbox doesn't deserve the comparison, dropbox restrict sharing to make themselves unattractive for piracy. The similarities stop with "storing heaps of files".
[1] e.g. on the streaming video side megavideo they had a 72 minute per day limit on watching videos. On the download site you were throttled and made to jump through a bunch of hoops to download one file at a time for free. These were not nice sites.
What US competitors are safe? You mean I can easily share copyrighted movies with strangers on dropbox? I've never seen anyone do that.
Journalists' dream come true. They/we can project upon him and his actions whatever fits their/our agenda.
There will eventually be a movie about him.
I was honestly more amazed by Kim's online persona, because I never had any idea what he did. To be honest, I just saw awesome websites and a guy that looked like he was having fun being a software engineer/hacker. Then he launched the Ultimate Rally, a competitor to the Gumball 3000 race, which was all about fast cars driving across different countries in the world (Another awesome website). I think that was in the early 2000's and after that I've been watching him. Since the internet was largely anonymous, I never knew who he was or that he was falsifying his lifestyle.
His websites have long since been taken down, but they are still vivid in my mind.
It's absurd that his file sharing service (which functionally is no different than Dropbox or Google Drive) gets shut down, but start-ups like Uber and AirBnb - which actually endanger people's lives and cause very real damage to property, are allowed to continue operating because their VCs are politically connected.
I used to be in the restaurant/hospitality business - you know how awesome it would be if I could just set up a restaurant, hotel or yes BnB in my house without going through the proper permits? In the part of Canada I live in, a BnB requires no fewer than 7 permits (3 municipal, 3 provincial, and 1 federal).
Edit - if you're in Canada, here's a useful tool to search for some of the permits and licenses your future business will require: http://www.canadabusiness.ca/eng/search/stp1
Here you have 2 US-based businesses thumbing their nose at local laws, as well as the laws of other countries, however because they're connected (and there's a lot of money invested) they get away with it (in the US anyway, and they try their luck elsewhere).
To say the Kim Dotcom debacle is anything but political is absurd...
I think the comparison at least has some merits.
Note: They currently remove specific content when requested and even automate the process. But, you can still find plenty of 'pirated' content where the owner has yet to complain.
Around here to run a taxi you need several things. One is a commercial vehicle driver's license, which requires training above and beyond the normal license. You also need commercial insurance, to protect yourself, your passengers, and the insurance company (else they would have to raise premiums for everyone to accommodate risky, illicit behaviour). Taxis are required to have cameras, to protect the drivers and passengers. From what I've seen of UberX's 'requirements', they violate in nearly every way, and I don't think I need a 'source' to state why a lack of training, insurance, and safety measures could harm people.
As for AirBnB, imagine you own a condo and someone across from you is running an illicit hotel. These kinds of things affect safety (random people who don't live there constantly coming and going), property value, and hurts legitimate businesses that actually employ people (say, the real BnB or Hotel nearby that follows all the regulations and thus has to pay higher costs). And of course, if you own a condo, are renting is, and your tenants are illegally subletting, the damage is more direct.
This case had nothing to do with MU hosting other people's work and content, tricking the general public into signing up to a paid account to download it, and generating 400MM of revenue from it at the same time.
It had everything to do with the horse carriage industry trying to stop the automobile.
Of course copyright is not actually licensed as FRAND like in the case of a patent accepted by some standards body, but I'm not sure why it shouldn't be when the alternative seems to be violent state-sponsored actions against foreign nationals like Kim Dotcom, protecting interests of incumbent super-companies and using various kinds of taxpayer dollars to invoke the police and para-military in the process.
So, like Spotify?
My experience with Uber was that it's merely a way for those who want to be cab drivers to bypass the legal requirements to do so, while Uber turns a blind eye to who is really driving their cars.
>I guess I'm going back to court soon to get some of my assets unfrozen for legal fees and living expenses. To be continued...
He still have a bunch of assets that are outside his control.
He also tweeted that his rent is paid until halfway to next year.
His wife is suing him for 20+ million.
Dude still has money, he just can't get access to large amounts of it to stir stuff up.
Also, I imagine there is quite a bit this guy can do once he is able to move his focus away from fighting huge organizations (including the U.S. gov) to stay out of jail.
Talk about adding insult to injury.
he's only really clever at self-promotion and this is just the latest chapter, either to hide money from governments/plaintiffs, his ex-wife or swindle some of his followers out of theirs.
can we not just ignore this guy finally; he's not some kind of internet robin hood / freedom fighter.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/kim-dotcom-s-wife-left-compa...
