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Digital MegaUpload Timeline Top Stories
Dotcom unveils Mega teaser site
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 1 November 2012
MegaUpload founder Kim ‘Dotcom’ Schmitz has revealed (slightly) more about his plans to relaunch the controversial file-transfer platform next January, a year to the day that the US authorities shut down his original website amidst allegations of money laundering, racketeering and copyright infringement. The criminal case against Dotcom and his Mega allies is, of course, ongoing.
As previously reported, Dotcom had already revealed his plans for MegaUpload v2, to be called Mega, in an interview with Wired. The big difference to v1 is that files uploaded to the new Mega platform will be automatically encrypted, in theory making it harder for the Mega site to become a rampant source of unlicensed movie and music files, and either way, according to Mega’s lawyers, the encryption would remove any liability for copyright infringement from the service’s operators.
The Mega teaser web page put online yesterday at kim.com/mega explains all that in a little bit more detail, while also calling for hosting and API partners, and possible investors, interested in helping Mega go live. As previously reported, US prosecutors have already claimed that by launching Mega Dotcom may be in breach of his bail terms in New Zealand, and could face extra criminal charges in the US if and when the Americans manage to extradite him.
Dotcom’s lawyers do not concur with that viewpoint, though Team Mega will not repeat their past mistake of hosting their service in the US, knowing that using servers elsewhere in the world will make it harder for the American authorities to take the thing offline. In his call for hosting partners, Dotcom claims: “It is not safe for cloud storage sites or any business allowing user-generated content to be hosted on servers in the United States, or on domains like .com/.net. The US government is frequently seizing domains without offering service providers a hearing or due process”.
