With the recent launch of Mega, Kim Dotcom has been on the upswing lately, at least when he’s not getting stranded by a busted helicopter. Recently, he sat down with the Financial Times to discuss his status as a hero/villain, the future of content delivery, and the $US20,000 he claims to have sunk into iTunes downloads.
A huge part of Dotcom’s business strategy has been claiming that his services aren’t for piracy. Mega is encrypted for your security, and whatnot. And to show he’s not a pirate, Dotcom told the Financial Times he’s sunk a whole buncha cash into his iTunes purchases. Though to be fair, $US20,000 is pocket-change for the dude.
From the Financial Times:
“You know I have never uploaded and shared a movie in my life,” he says. “I have always bought all my content. I’ve spent over $US20,000 in the past five years on iTunes. I’m not a pirate.” …Among reams of evidence, [The Department of Justice] cites emails showing what it says is wilful complicity in copyright infringement, including one from Megaupload’s chief technical officer saying, “We’re not pirates, we’re just providing shipping services to pirates :).” Dotcom says the DoJ lacks a sense of humour.
And with the continuing success of Mega, and many other Mega-related services on the horizon, Dotcom will doubtless have plenty more money to sink into that library if he wants to. As for movies, on the other hand, well, Dotcom had an interesting little comment for/about the MPAA:
Suddenly he breaks off. “Is that a chicken in my house?” Sure enough, a large white chicken is strutting through the living room towards us. “That’s a first. You can mention that the chicken came out when we started talking about Chris Dodd,” he says, referring to the chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America.
And there you have it folks; if you want to be a serious force in the digital storage locker world, you’ve got to get a few chickens, apparently. You can read more about Kim Dotcom’s future plans, absurd mansion, and perplexing pets in the Financial Times interview. [Financial Times]