For some, Kim Dotcom, the founder of the infamous MegaUpload file hosting service, is a criminal and Internet pirate, for others, he is a die-hard fighter for the inviolability of personal data. On March 12, 2017, the world premiere of a documentary film took place, which contains interviews with politicians, journalists and musicians who know Kim "from all sides". New Zealand director Annie Goldson, using a video from personal archives, talks about the essence of Dotcom's legal battles with the US government and other government agencies that have declared a fight against global Internet piracy.
In his youth, Kim Dotcom considered the United States a stronghold of world democracy, a country whose government is selflessly fighting for the triumph of justice throughout the world. Having played the roles of a hacker, a juvenile delinquent and a computer security consultant, by the age of 30 Kim decides to go into business and creates the largest file sharing service MegaUpload, the number of users of which has reached 160 million people. Almost until the very closing of the site in 2012, he took 13th place in the ranking of the most visited Internet resources. Over the 7 years of MegaUpload's existence, Kim earned more than a hundred million dollars, but as a result of litigation, he became bankrupt. The United States initiated the prosecution, accusing Dotcom of posting pirated content and copyright infringement, which allegedly caused damage to the copyright holders in the amount of $500 million.
Until now, Kim has not been able to recover from the blow and fix his financial affairs, since he spends all his funds on lawyers and the creation of new innovative projects, such as the K.im platform - the so-called "file store" that makes payments on the basis of the cryptocurrency.
The article tells about the plot of the film "Caught in the Net", as well as excerpts from other journalistic materials that are inaccessible to the Russian-speaking reader.
"It was amazing!"
In September 2011, Kim gave Oakland a 10-minute fireworks display that he spent over $500 on. He personally filmed this spectacular show from a helicopter he was on with his wife, and posted a clip with the most colorful effects on his YouTube channel. The nightly show was dedicated to the celebration of obtaining a residence permit in New Zealand, and it was the most spectacular fireworks in the history of the country.
There were 4 months left before Dotcom's arrest. The detention and interrogation did not last long, but they took away a lot of Kim's nerves - the matter was aggravated by the fact that illegal weapons were found on him.
A special forces policeman said that Dotcom was taken from a locked security room with a loaded shotgun in his hands. The arrest still went without a shootout, but the presence of a weapon in the house that was not registered according to the rules prevented Kim from immediately being released on bail.
Show must go on
In February 2012, less than a month after his arrest, Dotcom was released and searches of his home were declared illegal. Thanks to his lawyers, he was able to free some of his property from seizure and sell nine of his cars to pay off those same lawyers. This victory over justice meant a lot, but on the whole the general situation in New Zealand was favorable for him, probably due to the fact that the government of this country was not too willing to “bend” under the FBI. In addition, the country's prime minister felt guilty for the clumsy work of the secret service, whose surveillance Dotcom spotted literally in the very first month of his stay in New Zealand. When this was revealed, she had to publicly apologize to Kim, including due to pressure from the local opposition and journalists.
Dotcom was not going to put up with the fact that his business was closed. Already in August 2012, he promised that he would release a new, improved and completely legal service. This legality will be ensured by encrypting all materials uploaded to it “at the military level”. Each user will receive a key, without which it will not be possible to look inside the downloaded material. Thus, even if the police arrest the server, it will be impossible to determine what is stored on it.
Virtuous Piracy
It is not known whether Dotcom foresaw what MegaUpload could grow into, but users understood this. When they discovered the latest Hollywood news on the site, the file hosting service exploded. People simply googled the movie they wanted to watch or the song they wanted to listen to, and the link to the file would appear at the top of the search results. They followed the link and got to MegaUpload, where they saw the inscription: “By the way, if you want to download the file faster, just pay!”. They paid and got a premium account to download faster. Everything was very well thought out in order to lure people to the site who did not even think about whether it was legal or not. They wanted to see the film and honestly paid for it, and the money went to Kim's company.
However, formally, they paid not at all for the film, but for the speed! No one forced them to download files for money.
MegaUpload was where the students at the University of Kansas went to get free movies. When computer news reporter Greg Sandoval saw his girlfriend watching the recently released movie Mad Man on her computer, he asked where she had downloaded it from. The former graduate of the university replied: “From the site that our 63-year-old professor showed me!”. Greg thought it was serious, because the owners of the site were actually streaming stolen movies. "It's very easy, and if they made it this easy, this technology could go mainstream!"
Kim and Mona
Kim recalls that he traveled extensively in Asia. When he was at a disco in the Philippines, he saw Mona dancing there and immediately drew attention to her. She was incredibly beautiful, and since Dotcom was, as he says, "a little shy", he asked his assistant to approach Mona and invite her to join Kim's company.
Mona says she saw a guy sitting alone in the corner and thought why no one is talking to him? As it turned out, they had a lot in common, including a difficult childhood, but for a long time they remained just friends.
Kim says: “I knew I wanted to be with her! Look at me, I'm far from being a super model. So I need to put in more time and effort if I want someone to fall in love with me.” He took Mona to Europe, showed her Paris, and “in the end, she fell in love with me! We were very happy together."
In 2009, they went on vacation to New Zealand and were simply fascinated by this place. Once, traveling through the green New Zealand hills, they reached Coatesville and saw a house that they immediately fell in love with.
By then, MegaUpload was a huge success, earning Kim tens of millions of dollars a year. In New Zealand, Dotcom was almost unknown - for the neighbors, he was a secretive wealthy foreigner who lived in the largest house in the entire area.
Dotcom was very slow to enter New Zealand public life and gained some notoriety only thanks to the grandiose fireworks in Auckland. Upon learning that Dotcom had obtained a residence permit in New Zealand, Chris Dodd, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, stated in January 2012: “Now these thieves, these arrogant pirates are emigrating offshore, where the jurisdiction of the US courts does not extend. Therefore, we need to develop a mechanism to protect our jobs and our property and shut down all these sites or search engines, thanks to which illegal foreign file hosting exists!
Kim had a plan to register MegaUpload and go public with the company. According to his calculations, his project cost $2 billion. For him, this would be a transition to a completely new level of business - a legal level.
Kim recalled how in 2010 they were going to launch several new sites, one of which was MegaMoovie. It was planned that he would become a competitor to Netflix, an American company that supplies users with streaming video of movies and series. The goal was to obtain licenses to show their own stream from major film studios. Other projects included subsidiaries MegaClick, MegaKey, MegaVideo, MegaLive, MegaBackup, MegaPay, MegaBox. The latter would give artists 90% of what they earn on the site and could become a platform through which they could sell films to their fans. “We thought about how we can improve the principle of copyright. How can you make sure that the digital copy of the film brings direct benefits to both the actors and the creators.
Kim's team understood that his projects, like other similar digital media distribution platforms, were infringing in their early days, but a legitimate and legitimate business model could grow out of it.
A fragment of the audio recording of Kim's telephone conversation with Universal Music:
UM Representative: This technology of yours is already up and running, right?
Kim: Yes, it is!
UM rep: I'll be happy to make a deal with you guys, it's not a problem!
Kim: Great! Awesome, very happy to hear that! We got a lot of negativity from the content industry because of MegaUpload, you know?
UM Representative: Well, I can talk to certain people to have you removed from the "black list" and transferred to another list.
Kim: If it goes from black to neutral and then from neutral to white, I think it will be fair!
UM Representative: Yes, we can do that!
Kim: Fine, I'll be waiting.
Kim thought about how soon his file hosting service was waiting for the transition to the side of legitimate platforms. The film industry also thought about this outcome, and it drove her into a panic. “This is a violation! This is bad! Stop it!"
Motion Picture Association of America senior executive Steve Fabrizio said MegaUpload was essentially just a copycat of existing pirate sites. There was nothing new in what they did, they just did it better than others. The whole business model was to distribute content that MegaUpload didn't have the rights to.
Jonathan Zittrain, professor of law and computer science at Harvard University, told the makers of the Dotcom film, “As time went on, this guy became a multi-millionaire. His resource had a dual purpose: not only did people use it to share their vacation photos with friends, while others paid to download them much faster, they downloaded movie after movie, again and again!
“Kim Dotcom made a lot of money for himself. Did he spend at least part of these funds to support the art that he distributed for free? No! And in general, the author of any creation has rights, they are written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was signed by the UN, and not by the Motion Picture Association of America. Therefore, a person has the right to protect his moral and material interests. This is serious!" - this is the opinion expressed by journalist and writer Robert Levin, whose books users could also download from Kim's file hosting, - “If you want to give it away for free - give it away, if you want to show it - show it, if you want to burn it to disk, project it into space, show it on airplanes - it's yours right. But by selling content, Kim was violating the rights of many people.”
“When someone like Dotcom creates a website, puts movies on it and makes millions from it to buy yachts, estates, private jets, I consider it parasitism!” - says film producer Jonathan Taplin, - "He's a parasite that drinks blood from a single organism of artists! He's a criminal and should be in jail, he deserves it!"
In 2011, Kim began recording an album of his own songs at Roundhead Recording Studios in Oakland. At the time, he was working on the music site MegaBox, which he considered a real threat to music labels because the site helped musicians get rid of middlemen in the sale of the fruits of their labor. “These labels are monopolists that steal money from musicians,” Kim sincerely believed that by hitting the income of record companies, he could improve the welfare of singers and musicians, “Musicians really liked my idea, they were delighted and wanted to participate in our project. They wanted to promote the company the way we did.”
The words of the song “MegaUpload Song”: “I will send files around the world, I use MegaUpload, Send me a file today, MegaUpload” were sung by many musicians, and performed by Prince Board, Kim Dotcom and Macy Grey, posted on YouTube December 17, 2011, viewed by over 15 million people. Such famous singers as P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown (Chris Brown), The Game and Mary, J. Blige (J Blige).
With his clip, Dotcom "showed the middle finger right in the face of Hollywood's record companies." Music writer Gabriella Coleman says: “It was surprising because a lot of the labels that represent these celebrities weren't happy to see this promo at all. Its message didn't sit well with the studios' message that any copyright infringement harms musicians, not helps them."
What is going on? Musicians support Kim Dotcom and MegaUpload at a critical moment. Kim is a PR master, he knows what really works and has an impact on the public. In this sense, Dotcom was a genius, and Hollywood could not imagine that he would be capable of such a thing. It was a complete surprise.
"Hi, I'm Alicia Keys, I use MegaUpload!", "Hi, I'm Naomi Campbell,...", "Hi, I'm Demi Moore...", "Hi, people, I'm Kim Kardashian, and I love MegaUpload."
Hollywood Enemy #1
“These people are whores! Wave a little check in front of them and they'll show up anywhere! You know, it's very sad!" - this is how Hollywood film producer Jonathan Taplin said about the actors and musicians who supported Kim, - “The music business was not like this before. And now all these Kim Dotcoms ... people want to make money so much that they are ready for anything.
For the entertainment moguls, Kim just seemed to be bullying them because she lives in a huge mansion, owns all these cars, lives a luxurious life. They believed that he had all this at their expense.
Kim Dotcom's personal car park in the courtyard of a New Zealand mansion.
He needed to be stopped, and in a sense, he brought trouble on himself. The Hollywood film industry has long regarded Dotcom as its enemy, and it has huge political influence in the US. This implies influence in the corridors of power of both the White House and Congress.
Chris Dodd, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Hollywood's most powerful lobbyist, told Fox News that the industry intends to end financial support for the president. “It is naive to think that if we did this in the past, we will do the same now. The industry is watching very carefully who will intercede for it at the time of the threat!”
He made it clear to Barack Obama, who was running for a second presidential term: "If you do not give us what we want, you can not expect financial assistance from us for the election campaign."
Hollywood really put pressure on the US president and government to shut down the Dotcom pirate site. "Standing between America and her money - expect big problems!"
January 19, 2012. Capture
From the secret correspondence of FBI agents: “Tomorrow is the birthday of the target. Most of the invited guests are expected to attend.”
The original security video captures the events at the Dotcom mansion starting at 6:15 am. By the way, the cameras really record the sound, as one of Kim's neighbors suggested, and at a fairly large distance. The footage shows two police vans and three patrol cars approaching the mansion.
A New Zealand Police Special Forces helicopter footage broadcasts an order for the ground team to take position at the mansion's gate. Two agents jump over the fence, one of them quickly runs up to the guard who is talking to the policeman at the gate, puts his hands behind his back and takes him to the police van.
A helicopter lands on the lawn in front of the house, a group of heavily armed agents jumps out of it, who runs into the house through the main entrance. The radio broadcasts the negotiations of the capture group: “We are in the house, we went to the bedroom of the object. The door is slammed, it has a combination lock. They hacked in. He escaped! We don't see him in the studio or in the bedroom."
“They took the inhabitants of the garage. Three persons. We are in the process of making an arrest."
“The physical location of the object in front of the building. Key Directive: One of the male subjects said the name "Finn". He's under arrest."
"We see the nanny and his children on the roof of the garage."
“We found the target. Security room, 3rd floor. “I confirm the presence of the target.”
From the secret correspondence of FBI agents: “We were happy and had a lot of fun. We are just immensely happy with the result!”.
Kim's case was heard by the New Zealand North Coast District Court. He and his team were arrested on charges of US copyright infringement, money laundering and extortion. In New Zealand, a court seized $6 million worth of luxury Dotcom vehicles and more than $10 million in cash from several New Zealand financial companies. New details of the raid soon emerged: the police said that when they arrived in 2 helicopters, Dotcom locked himself in a security room with electronic locks on the doors. When the doors were forced open, they found Kim clutching a sawed-off shotgun.
The court charged Kim with the fact that illegal firearms in curb condition were found in the mansion. Given the gravity of the charges, the court denied him bail.
According to the FBI, which were cited in court during the reading of the list of charges, Kim Dotcom earned $ 175 million from criminal operations, causing damage to copyright holders in the amount of half a billion dollars.
“He was classified as a criminal because he was a criminal and remains a criminal, and not the last one. The fact that he did not commit violence does not mean that his actions were not of a criminal nature. People go to jail for securities fraud, and bodily harm is not the issue,” said Steve Fabrizio, SEO of the American Association of Companies. “He harmed at least two million people who make a living in the film industry. He has compromised a small business that creates platforms for distributing content online and plays by the rules.”
February 22, 2012 Release
Kim walks out of the courtroom as reporters immediately approach him. "Hey Kim! How are you?" “I am happy to go home and see my three children and my pregnant wife there. I hope you understand that now I don’t want to say anything else! ” But reporters are not far behind: "How were you treated in prison?". Kim says again, “I want to go home to my family! Excuse me gentlemen!
“What about the US extradition hearing? Will you resist this?" Reporters' cameras escort Kim to the car. Yes, I will fight it!
So, after 31 days behind bars and posting bail, Kim was released. The court was to continue consideration of the case and, at the “urgent request” of the US authorities, decide on the extradition of Kim and his accomplices, each of whom was threatened by American justice with a prison term of about 80 years.
Home video footage captured Kim's meeting with his wife and children. Kim doesn't hide her tears. “It was like we were living in a rainbow bubble! Before this raid, everything went too well for us ... ".
The video camera captured Mona in the maternity ward of the New Zealand district hospital and the birth of two twin daughters. Kim, in a hospital gown and cap, sits at the bedside of the woman in labor, looking at the babies with admiration and love.
“Today I became a father again,” Kim says, “These are two beautiful girls, two little pirates!” “It’s great that I was released earlier and I was able to watch the birth of the twins. It gave me energy, reminded me that I must continue my fight, fight for them!”
Translator's Note:
Kim and Mona separated in 2014 after being married for 5 years and having a son and 4 daughters. Mona lives with her children in Queenstown, a city on the shores of Lake Wakatipu on the South Island of New Zealand, which is surrounded by the picturesque Southern Alps.
In February 2018, 44-year-old Kim Dotcom married 22-year-old Elizabeth Donnelly. The couple met over the Internet. While 20-year-old Liz was having lunch with friends at the Botswana Cafe on Auckland's waterfront, her smartphone flashed an Instagram message from a stranger. He wrote that he saw her photo on the network and wants to meet. They corresponded throughout lunch, and then Dotcom invited her and her friends to their Princes Wharf penthouse, which was a 5-minute walk from the waterfront. At first they just talked. They exchanged SMS, chatted, met again and talked ...
In 2016, Elizabeth came to the Dotcom Mansion in Coatesville for the first time, and son Kimmo. who was staying with his father at that moment, said: “Dad, she deserves 11 on a scale of 10!”
“I’m not the first, I’m not the last of the girls who fell in love with men who are suitable for their fathers,” says Liz Dotcom, “I have never been upset because of what people say about Kim or because of what it is written by the press. The truth really hurts, but none of this chatter and writing is the truth!”
Kim Dotcom's second wife, Elizabeth. February 2018.
So, Kim was released on bail, the amount of which is still unknown. Kim tells the crew that when they were arrested and the accusations were read, he just laughed, they sounded so absurd. “I knew that we were innocent, that we had not committed any of the crimes that we were accused of. I told my lawyers that it would end very quickly.” He assured lawyers that it would be very easy to prove the innocence of the founders of MagaUpload.
While in custody, Kim looked through many newspapers full of notes about the arrest, about his person and his luxurious life. It said that he resisted arrest with a sawn-off shotgun in his hands, and many unregistered weapons were found in the house. Kim was surprised how far this was from the truth. This was a complete lie, and in the very first interview after the arrest, Dotcom decided to clarify all the circumstances of the case.
“Of course, everyone knows that the Internet is used for illegal business, and I think all online entrepreneurs have had the same difficulties as we have. YouTube, Google - we are all in the same boat. Our lawyers have always assured us that we are immune from legal trouble and are protected by the DMCA, an American law that protects the interests of online service providers from the consequences of the actions of unscrupulous service users.
Kim's team of lawyers convinced the court that the actions of the Dotcom resource are no different from the activities of other file hosting services, when the owners of the service cannot be held responsible for the pirated actions of users. That's all, there is nothing more to discuss, the charges should be dropped. The US government, however, claimed that the site was originally created to encourage people to upload valuable content such as recently released movies, new music, and the like.
In an interview with the crew of Caught in a Net, Kim says how important it is to note the following. "I shouldn't have been in a situation where I had to defend myself against extradition simply because there is no such legal framework in New Zealand." The US authorities had to prove to the court that the extradition treaty between the US and New Zealand included a copyright clause. However, the court saw nothing of the kind. According to Dotcom, “this is just a fake. The US authorities are concocting such documents in order to create a business where there should be no business.”
One US official says their New Zealand counterparts screwed up the Dotcom case from start to finish. Thus, the search warrant used in the raid on Kim's estate should have indicated the alleged criminal act that served as the basis for this event. However, the warrant did not contain any indication of a criminal article and was incredibly vague.
New Zealand police copied data from laptops seized from a Dotcom home during the raid. The court ruled that this evidence should remain in New Zealand, after which the FBI took copies of the data and sent them to the United States. This was unheard of, since copies of computer data are not admissible in court as evidence, since in the process of copying the original information from the laptop hard drive to external media and transporting it to forensic experts, changes could be made to it. Dotcom's rights, due process - everything was violated, and it had to be corrected somehow.
Many people continue to believe that Dotcom has a clear criminal talent, because he always felt the extent to which it is possible to break the law with relative impunity. Kim knew exactly under what circumstances the prosecution would unsuccessfully try to prove criminal intent. For example, at the second trial in Germany, when he was accused of embezzling money from investors who invested in Kim's "megaprojects", he readily stated that at that moment he was blinded by the prospects that opened up and did not understand that he would not be able to repay the debt.
Defending MegaUpload, Dotcom used with might and main the well-worn cliches about greedy businessmen of the media content industry, about limiting the free Internet and the slogan “Copyright is a universal evil!”. The saying "The main pirate is Google, they are no better than us!" and a photo of Dotcom in a black beret on the Twitter page, stylized as a portrait of Ernesto Che Guevara, won him the understanding and sympathy of millions of users of the world wide web. "If he's not quite the noble outlaw Robin Hood, then he certainly isn't the ruthless pirate Francis Drake." Kim Dotcom always knew what to appeal to, although his image of a fighter for the freedom of the Internet was greatly damaged by his love of money and a luxurious life.
To be continued very soon...
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Source: habr.com