Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has launched a new site, appropriately called kim.com, ?protest the legal case against Megaupload?in the midst of facing extraditon and a 20-year US prison sentence, according to a report by Wired.
He is currently on bail in New Zealand for charges of allegedly leading a piracy ring that saw a net value of $175 million since its launch in 2005.?A New Zealand court recently ruled that the search warrants New Zealand police used in their raid of Dotcom?s mansion were illegal.
Dotcom, who claims that ?the US government has declared war on the internet,? is attempting to rally the support of the Internet community in voting against President Obama on November 5 if the case against Megaupload isn?t dismissed.
The campaign features the slogan ?SOPA PIPA ACTA MEGA,? which draws parallels between the case against Megaupload and the US government?s recent efforts to pass strict copyright agreements in the US and internationally.
Dotcom has also recorded a protest anthem called ?Mr President,? in which he posts the question, ?Whatever happened to change, Mr. President?? The YouTube video has already gone viral with over 516,000 views.
In an interview with Wired, Dotcom said he set up kim.com to ?inform about the unreasonable actions and phony charges against Megaupload and its management?.
He said he feels it ?is important for people understand how dangerous the Megaupload case is,? adding that there ?is no due process or rule of law, just politically driven aggression and destruction lobbied for by the MPAA.?
Dotcom also said the FBI singled-out Megaupload as ?an easy target?, and that ?Megaupload was a good corporate citizen [that has] always cooperated with rights holders and authorities.?
While there were certainly many legitimate files stored on Megaupload by users ? whom Carpathia Hosting and Electronic Frontier Foundation were helping to retrieve following the seizure of servers by the FBI ? it is heavily debatable whether Dotcom was truly an innocent bystander in all of this.
According to the details of the indictment, the founders of Megaupload were well aware of its copyright infringement even encouraged it in order to boost membership and revenue.
In a HostingCon 2012 session last week, attorney and WHIR blogger David Snead discussed the legal lessons web hosts can take away from the Megaupload indictment.
So far, Dotcom says the response to the site has been ?overwhelmingly positive,? adding that it is ?easy to fight back when you have so much support and know that you have done nothing wrong.?
On August 1, Dotcom will take the campaign one step further by enlisting the support of its 200 million former users using their email addresses, according to the site.
Talk back: Do you think kim.com will successfully rally the support of the Internet community and have a tangible effect on Megaupload?s legal case? Do you agree with his argument? Let us know in the comments.
About Justin Lee
Justin Lee has been a staff analyst with theWHIR since 2004. He writes about a range of web hosting and IT-related issues facing the industry on the WHIR website, as well the print version of the WHIR magazine. Follow him on Twitter @Justin_theWHIR.
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