User blog:Qwertyxp2000 the second/Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web

"Tech entrepreneur, and owner of the popular file-sharing site, MegaUpload, Kim Dotcom arrived in New Zealand with his family in late 2010. Seeking peace and quiet, Dotcom rented the largest mansion in the land and settled down into an extravagant, luxurious life with his family. In January 2012, it all came crashing down. At the FBI's behest, 70 heavily armed officers stormed the mansion, arresting Dotcom and his coders on a range of charges relating to alleged copyright infringement by MegaUpload. Dotcom refused to be quieted. Once out on bail he continued to make waves, gathering around him an unexpected and contradictory group of bedfellows, throwing raves, starting political parties, provoking the powerful and fighting the carges against him every step of the way. People have an incredibly wide range of views: Is he a bit-stream pirate or a folk hero? An underdog taking on the US superpower or a theif? A wealthy businessman or a freedom-loving anarchist? All of the above?"

- iTunes description

Yesterday, I had watched the documentary Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web, directed by Annie Goldson. It was a very interesting documentary about how Kim Dotcom became one of the most controversial internet figures. In his teenagehood, he had successfully hacked the phoning industry by bypassing the phoning bills in Germany in that he would not have to pay bills. He was caught and jailed multiple times, but soon was requested by hundreds of companies to help ensure their own companies are hacker-proof. Later, he created MegaUpload to promote copyright infringement to challenge weaknesses of the current legal system. He was forced to leave Germany after having gotten far too many copyright issues within his country.

He has been known to have multiple copyright infringements throughout his years, but through his various ways revealing to us the truth about freedom of speech he convinces us that online piracy sites challenge the way that we should approach the current legal way of working. He says that by having online piracy sites like his MegaUpload site then other companies should consider that they should change their system to allow it to make it easier to access music and films legally. Having also read the biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, I also read that Steve Jobs convinced other music companies that his invention iTunes Store would be superior at countering the issue of online piracy even if it means forcing to sell each song as singles rather than as only as full albums as in the case of records: "Piracy and online downloads had already deconstructed the album" and "You couldn't complete with piracy unless you sold the songs individually". Albums are not easy to find, especially when sometimes they are not found around the world easily. However, an online piracy site such as MegaUpload is accessible around the world on any computer. Because of the growing internet power, in which Kim Dotcom has utilized to exploit weaknesses of both the internet and the music and film industries, he has created MegaUploads to earn lots of money from the advertisements that appear on the website while keeping the customers happy by providing a much simpler option to music and films despite legal issues surrounding it. Thus I can clearly see that online piracy is already an issue throughout the world, rendering conventional methods of legal purchase as inferiorly used. As with Goldson's documentary, Kim Dotcom is portrayed to have built a successful online business that involves pirating music and film, but later has his website MegaUpload seized by the US Government.

Soon, he settled to New Zealand to seek peace and quiet. However, he has soon been identified by the US that Kim Dotcom has committed serious acts. His serious acts have lead to a full-scale raid by the police, as well as being spied on his mansion persistently. As a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident, they have the right to be protected by New Zealand law. The law prohibits spying on New Zealand citizens as well as prohibiting such raids by the police to the extent that they confiscate his property. Soon, his family is in danger; his wife separated, his children are vulnerable. And he loses a business he claims is just an innocent business. He gets raided and spied on unlike any other New Zealand citizen. He calls the police, at most acceptable words, pathetically stupid. John Key, the prime minister that was leading in 2014, had forced in a new law that all New Zealand citizens can be spied on by the government, but this lead to heavy protests by the local citizens, which lead to John Key becoming decreasingly supported to extent that he resigned in early 2017. Kim Dotcom also set up his own political party that could potentially overrun the National Party, the party that John Key supports. Kim Dotcom lost, and soon lead to his decline in support. Nowadays, John Key, the Crown (as in the New Zealand law), and police refuse to be interviewed about the entire Kim Dotcom incident as of 2017. Kim Dotcom, however, did was interviewed in the documentary.

Kim Dotcom's hacker history has lead to a very ambiguous villain/hero situation. He has proved that there are major flaws in the music and film industry, but he has also gained money from his website MegaUpload that infringes copyright. He has become the central target for recurring searches to capture him, causing his entire family, property, and businesses to be in danger. Whether it was the right choice for the government to put extreme measures to solving the complicated case of major copyright infringement is debatable.

This documentary is rated M (equiv. PG-13) in my country due to profanity, mild sexual content, and violence. However, something relevant that I can bring from this documentary that I can show to this wiki is why people enjoy pirating things in the first place, particularly with My Singing Monsters Soundtrack being pirated on YouTube. The reason why people enjoy pirating is that it is easier to obtain than the hassles that have to be done when purchasing a real thing legitimately, but mostly to bypass spending money. However, sometimes there are hassles when purchasing the actual My Singing Monsters Soundtrack legitimately, such as the requirement of the iTunes password to purchase the real thing. But usually, people are just too lazy to go purchase a full legitimate copy when the pirated copy seems just as quality. Thus the reason why online pirating exists. However, because iTunes music is available all around the world, it shouldn't be a difficult way to purchase My Singing Monsters Soundtrack legally. Compared to online piracy sites, where films can be downloaded from anywhere around the world while movies were still not released worldwide, music once on iTunes can be available worldwide.