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Welcome Back, Kim DotCom!

Kim DotCom is back. He's tweeting up a storm and posting pictures -- and making fun of law enforcement. His kids are adorable. He's gotten more than 32,000+ followers (including me) in the first 6 days. He follows one person: Barack Obama.

He's also picked up a big new supporter for his legal defense: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. [More...]

Woz says:

"When crimes occur through the mail, you don't shut the post office down... "When governments dream up charges of 'racketeering' for a typical IT guy who is just operating a file-sharing service, or accuse him of mail fraud because he said he had removed files [to alleged infringing content] when he'd just removed the links to them, this is evidence of how poorly thought out the attempt to extradite him is. Prosecutors are attempting to take advantage of loopholes. Too bad for the U.S. government that DotCom lives in New Zealand, which is better on human rights."

I think Woz also gets this right:

"When you can't stop something like a steamroller," Wozniak wrote, "get out of the way."

Kim DotCom said in March he's in this fight to win it. I hope he does win. He's had everything taken from him based on as yet unproven allegations. It's one of the unfortunate parts of our justice system that is straight out of Alice in Wonderland:

'No, no!' said the Queen. `Sentence first --verdict afterwards.'

Back to his Twitter account: Whether it's racketeering or money laundering, or bail conditions, he's got a funny photo for it. He even jokes about being driven to Mexico -- the restaurant, not the country.

Also in the works: his new album and a new file-sharing music company: MegaBox:

Welcome back, Kim DotCom. I've been following his case since the day of his arrest. I really hope he and his co-defendants win their extradition challenge.

The next hearing in his Virginia case is on June 29. The Government is even seeking to prevent his lawyers from entering an appearance and arguing on his and MegaUpload's behalf.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Tweet up hell Kim... (5.00 / 2) (#2)
    by kdog on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 08:43:20 AM EST
    It sure is refreshing when government bullies pick on the wrong guy, someone with the means and the will to fight back.  

    Well, they tried to make sure (none / 0) (#3)
    by sj on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 10:53:49 AM EST
    that he didn't have the means to fight back, but I don't think they counted on that will.

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    Yeah... (none / 0) (#4)
    by kdog on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 11:14:40 AM EST
    and the govt. has the nerve to call Kim a thief.

    Parent
    The Reason He's in This Mess... (none / 0) (#5)
    by ScottW714 on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 02:42:51 PM EST
    ...IMO is because his history of taunting governments.

    No opinion, but damn Mr .com you don't need to create more enemies at this point.

    Parent

    I hear ya man... (none / 0) (#7)
    by kdog on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 03:03:37 PM EST
    bigger stones than me...yes sir no sir can I go sir is how I roll, but I wish had Kim Dotcom stones, and I'm glad he's out there going toe to toe with the bastards.

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    Kim DotCom is colorful, for sure. (none / 0) (#1)
    by EL seattle on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 03:42:52 AM EST
    And New Zealand might be a safer place for him to stay than Germany, considering what happened to the founder of Kino.to about a week ago.

    THR: Kino.to Founder Dirk B. Jailed, Gives Up $5 Million in File-Sharing Profits

    Looking at these stories as part of a multi-dimension chess thing, I think the significant line from the Dirk B. story is:

    "According to the court, Dirk B. earned a total of $8.2 million (€6.6 million) from the site, much of it through advertising." (emphasis mine)

    Advertising was the main source of Megaupload's revenue as well. If the cash flow from automated advertising stops for those sites, and the bandwidth bills barely get paid, I think the unlicensed content bubble will definitely start to deflate (rather than continue to expand).  

    Also, this item from the Dirk B. might be worth noting in regards to the Megaupload case:

    "Before European police shut down kino.to in a coordinated raid last year, the site hosted links to some 135,000 copyright-protected films and TV series and had up to 4 million users a day."

    The mention of European police involvement would suggest (to me) that this case wasn't stricly a German operation.

    Who Doesn't Love... (none / 0) (#6)
    by ScottW714 on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 02:43:28 PM EST
    ...The Woz ?

    this ALMOST (none / 0) (#8)
    by sj on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 05:37:25 PM EST
    makes me want to create a twitter account.  But then I'd have to, you know, log in to it and read... stuff.  And for some reason I can't even say "tweets" with a straight face.

    agreed. (none / 0) (#9)
    by cpinva on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 07:35:35 PM EST
    real men don't "tweet".

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    Real men don't "tweet"? (none / 0) (#10)
    by Slayersrezo on Tue Jun 26, 2012 at 08:58:26 PM EST
    Says who?
    Chirp chirp tweet!

    Parent