Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was denied bail at North Shore District Court on Wednesday. Judge David McNaughton ruled that despite his family ties in New Zealand Dotcom posed a significant flight risk because he had access to money and forged travel documents. Also, Dotcom – who is a German national – had an incentive to flee the country: if he returned to Germany he’d be safe from extradition to the U.S. because Germany and the U.S. don’t have an extradition agreement. Dotcom will remain in custody at least until February 22 when the first of – presumably – several extradition hearings will be held. Legal experts expect the extradition process to take a considerable amount of time, at least a couple of months, because of the complexity of the case and the fact that both the prosecution and the defense will most likely appeal any rulings that will be made against them. It’s also worth noting what most most mainstream media outlets fail to report, namely that Dotcom‘s extradition to the U.S. is by no means a done deal. Even Judge Naughton acknowledged in his ruling that “there appears to be an arguable defence, at least in respect of the breach of copyright charges“.
Some conspiracy theorists claim that it was a bit too much of a coincidence that Megapload was shut down just one day after half the Internet blacked out last week in protest of the controversial SOPA and PIPA censorship bills. The truth is, authorities cracked down on Kim Dotcom and his empire on Friday because Dotcom had a big birthday party planned for Saturday, a good opportunity to arrest not only Dotcom himself but also three of his Mega Co-conspirators who had already arrived at Dotcom‘s lavish New Zealand estate for the party.
But another theory is emerging on why Megaupload was targeted by the authorities. Last December a new service called Megabox was launched in beta as what Dotcom described as Megaupload’s iTunes competitor, which would even eventually offer free premium movies via Megamovie (to be launched in 2012), and cater to unsigned artists who would be able to sell their music through the service and retain 90% of the earnings, or even profit from their work by giving it away for free. Dotcom: “Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works“. It’s not a big surprise that this revolutionary business model that was going to bypass record labels, the RIAA and the entire music establishment was not popular with the industry. And the industry’s arms are long and powerful as the example of Robert Bennett shows. Bennett, who is best known for defending President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal, was going to defend Megaupload in their upcoming trial but has been forced to withdraw from the case.
John F Kennedy once said “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable“. This holds true even in this case, although it is by no means a call for actual physical violence against anyone. But allegorically speaking the entertainment industry has been going through its fair share of revolutions in the past decades, and it has fought every single one of them as fervently as stubbornly. Whenever new technology came along that would endow consumers with more freedom to create, use, alter or share media the industry was against it and released the hounds (i.e. the lawyers). They fought audio cassette tapes, they fought photocopiers, they fought VCRs, they fought CD burners, they fought Tivo. Now they’re fighting the Internet. They fought every single new technology that would give consumers more freedom. And we the people fought back. Violently. Not by breaking windows or skulls. But by breaking the law. As in every revolution there were casualties along the way. Many people were tried, some were convicted. But in the end it was the consumers who got what they wanted. Every. Single. Time.
This is the 21st century, and the entertainment industry still hasn’t learned its lesson. The lesson is: people want stuff. And they want it quickly, easily, and at a reasonable price. Think ebooks. You don’t need any paper or ink to produce an ebook, and delivering an ebook to a customer, say via iTunes or Kindle, costs virtually nothing. Yet some ebooks are even more expensive than the printed version. I mean, what the fuck?
Also, imagine the following conversation at a supermarket cash out:
Cashier: “This sausage is $2.99.”
Customer: “Yeah, okay, that’s cool.”
Cashier: “It’s for making sandwiches. Are you gonna use this sausage to make sandwiches?”
Customer: “Um, I guess. I might also put some of it on a pizza though.”
Cashier: “$2.99 is for sandwiches only. If you’re gonna use it for pizza I’m gonna have to charge you extra. That’ll make it $3.49.”
Customer: “…”
Cashier: “Also, I’m gonna need your address and phone number.”
Customer: “What? Why?!?”
Cashier: “The ASIA might occasionally come and check whether or not you use the sausage in any way other than specified in the license agreement. ”
Customer: “The ASIA?”
Cashier: “The American Sausage Industry Association.”
Customer: “…”
Cashier: “Is this sausage intended for your own personal consumption?”
Customer: “Well, my wife and kids…”
Cashier: “That’ll be an extra 10 cents for each additional person.”
Customer: “My wife and kids are dead.”
Cashier: “I’m sorry for your loss, sir. But I’m gonna need their death certificates. Just to be sure.”
The industry needs to wake up and smell the Kool-Aid. People want stuff. What they don’t want is to open an account and share tons of personal information every time they listen to a song, read a book or watch a movie. Unless the industry changes their ways and comes up with a business model for the 21st century piracy will prevail. The industry doesn’t respect consumers and it doesn’t respect consumers’ wishes. It only respects consumers’ money. However, I’m a consumer, and the irony is that sometimes they don’t even want my money. I’m actually ready to pay money to watch the latest episode of The Simpsons or Johnny’s Jr.land. But I want to watch them when everyone else is watching them and in the original language, not in a couple of months in a poorly dubbed German version (like The Simpsons) or never unless I travel halfway across the globe (like Johnny’s Jr.land). I’m ready to part with my money, but apparently the industry doesn’t want it. I’m forced into piracy. That can’t be right.
There are ways to make this work for everybody. In my country we have taxes on photocopiers and DVD burners. A couple of dollars on every photocopier and every DVD burner that is sold. The money goes into a pool and from there it’s distributed to writers and composers and producers whose work will inevitably be copied by someone, somewhere, somehow. And guess what, it fucking works.
Put a tax on the Internet. A dollar per month for every Internet user. 2 billion Internet users. $24 billion per year. Just take the goddamn money, stop treating me like a criminal and let me fucking watch my movies and TV shows, let me listen to my music, and let me share the good stuff with my friends. If we really like what we see or hear we’re even gonna buy a physical copy, because us fangirls and fanboys are awesome like that.
Get your heads out of your asses, industry people. It can’t be that difficult.
In other, totally related news people everywhere need to act up against ACTA, the equally evil cousin of SOPA and PIPA. If ACTA had been in place eight years ago I never even would have heard of Johnny’s. I never would have personally carried $15,000 of my own hard earned cash to Japan. I never would have started this blog, and subsequently this blog never would have pumped ¥15 million (and counting!) into the Japanese economy.
Think about that, industry suckers. Think about that, Mr Johnny-san. And again: stop treating me like a criminal. Because like it or not, but you need people like me more than people like me need you.
