Digital MegaUpload Timeline

Kim Dotcom promotes Mega via radio ads

By | Published on Tuesday 15 January 2013

Mega

With the launch of his new online file storage service, named Mega, due this weekend, Kim ‘Dotcom’ Schmitz has bought ad time on eight New Zealand radio stations to promote it. New Zealand being where he is currently based as he awaits possible extradition to the US, and the country where the site’s domain is registered (after the West African country of Gabon scuppered plans to use me.ga as the company’s URL).

Dotcom announced his plans to launch Mega, a new version of MegaUpload, which automatically encrypts files as they are uploaded, last year. Dotcom and his lawyers believe that the auto-encryption will save them from any liability for what is stored on the site, especially from a copyright point of view, because it won’t be possible for the site’s operators to tell what is stored in any one file. Ensuring maximum controversy, the site will be launched on the first anniversary of MegaUpload’s takedown by US authorities, 19 Jan.

Those American authorities believe that, by launching the new Mega, Dotcom could be in breach of his bail conditions in New Zealand, which stand until any extradition hearing can take place. Team Mega disagree, but it will be interesting to see if the US make any complaint in court once the new service goes live.

But anyway, these radio ads. There are five of them running at five, fifteen and 30 seconds. Dotcom told NBR that they would be on heavy rotation this week, saying: “I think nobody with a radio will be able to miss them. We will launch a global ad campaign, radio and internet, after the launch”.

Asked why he began with radio ads, rather than an online campaign, he said: “Audio ads on the Internet don’t work. We wanted to do something fun that people can enjoy when they drive to work”.

Nonetheless, you can hear all of the adverts, which close with the tagline, “Mega.co.nz – the privacy company”, on Dotcom’s SoundCloud profile. Or you can check out the longest offering here:



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