Case Against Kim Dotcom Copyright Infringement Continues to Weaken

thedailybell.com / By Staff Report / January 4, 2013

Kim Dotcom: Mega Will Turn Encryption into a Mass Product … Next month Kim Dotcom will release a new and improved version of the now defunct Megaupload. Today, he unveiled the new look of the site by sharing several teaser screenshots, including one of the encryption interface. Mega, as the new service is called, will turn encryption into a mass product and Dotcom believes that with Mega’s help half of all Internet traffic will be encrypted in 5 years. Over the past several months a group of coders have been working hard on the new “Mega” which is scheduled to launch January 20 2013, exactly one year after Megaupload was shut down. –TorrentFreak

Dominant Social Theme: The Fat Man is going down. Just a matter of time.

Free-Market Analysis: When Kim Dotcom was chased into the safe room of his mansion in New Zealand a year ago, the mainstream Western press went into full cry. It was universally assumed that this Falstaffian character would soon be starring in his very own Shakespearian tragedy behind bars in a US jail.

The idea was that Dotcom had made his money with Megaupload (now shut down) by encouraging people to steal copyrighted work and store it in the company’s cyber-lockers.

This was the reason the US sent FBI agents halfway around the world to work with New Zealand to arrest Kim Dotcom. The estimate was that Dotcom had cost Hollywood millions if not billions by allowing viewers to pilfer contents.

But today, a year later, most if not all of the US copyright case is in ruins.

• New Zealand courts have found that surveillance of Kim Dotcom was illegal. So, apparently, was the way the raid was conducted.
• The Prime Minister of New Zealand has apologized personally to Kim Dotcom.
• Dotcom has been released from jail and some of his assets unfrozen.
• Various surveys have shown that users of film (if not music) have consumed LESS rather than more since the shutdown of Megaupload.
• New Zealand courts found the FBI acted illegally in confiscating Megaupload’s servers.
• The baseline contention that Megaupload abetted information thievery is increasingly a controversial one, as there is no way that Megaupload could police each one of its users.
• The idea that people can lose the whole of their life’s work based on civil/criminal charges that have not yet been proven has provided a timely “wakeup call” to those who did not notice how much the US in particular has eroded civil liberties in the 21st century.

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