Kim Dotcom says ‘Film industry to blame for piracy’

Megaupload.com founder Kim Dotcom has claimed that his file-sharing site was always entirely legal.

Speaking to New Zealand news broadcaster John Campbell, Dotcom said that the film industry in particular had brought piracy upon itself.

“Piracy comes from, you know, people, let’s say, in Europe who do not have access to movies at the same time that they are released in the US,” he said. "This is a problem that has been born within this licensing model and the old business model that Hollywood has where they release something first in one country but they show trailers to everyone around the world pitching that new movie but then the 14-year-old kid in France or Germany can’t watch it for another six months, you know?”
Kim Dotcom with his wife Mona Schmitz
He argued that “If the business model would be one where everyone has access to this content at the same time, you know, you wouldn’t have a piracy problem. So it’s really, in my opinion, the government of the United States protecting an outdated monopolistic business model that doesn’t work anymore in the age of the internet and that’s what it all boils down to. I’m no piracy king, I offered online storage and bandwidth to users and that’s it.”

Dotcom, whose wife is pregnant, was imprisoned for a month after prosecutors claimed Megaupload.com was hosting unprecedented illegal filesharing. He was bailed on 22 February, although prosecutors contested it, claiming he was a flight risk.

Dotcom acknowledged that he was a flamboyant character, but said he had spent millions of lawyers over Megaupload’s lifetime to ensure nothing was illegal. He said that over 15 million links to copyrighted material were removed, and copyright owners were able to delete it directly themselves.

He said that no studio had ever attempted to sue the site, and said “I’m going to fight this all the way and I promise you, and everybody who’s watching this right now, I’m going to win because I’m no criminal and I’ve done nothing illegal.”

written by By Matt Warman

Related Posts by Categories



No comments:

back to top