Newsmaker: Megaupload a story of Dotcom boom and bust

[dipsydoodle]

(Reuters) - Among the roll-call of hip-hop artists and other celebrities plugging Megaupload.com's digital storage services in an online promotional video, a cameo from the website's founder would have gone unnoticed by many.

As the voiceover boasts of the site's billion users and four percent share of all Internet traffic, a colossal figure clad in black appears in a music studio.

"Bit by bit, it's a hit, it's a hit!" founder Kim Dotcom booms in a slight accent that hints at his German roots.

The hits may have just run out for Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Investor, who spent his 38th birthday on Saturday in a New Zealand jail after 70 police raided his country estate and cut him out of a safe room he had barricaded himself in.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/22/us-internet-megaupload-idUSTRE80L02W20120122

[Joe Shlabotnik]

1. Good read. I'm curious to see how this plays out.

It seems Dotcom was pretty low hanging fruit for the PTB: He was flamboyant, had a rap sheet, and he broke the only rule that 1%er's ever go to jail over: stealing from other 1%er's. All in all, this was an easy excuse to set an example, and further claw back the worlds ability to communicate privately, freely, and without fear of reprisal. Now Filesonic has disabled file sharing.