I see Kim Dotcom as a stereotypical gangster who makes money by delivering illegal products. He has the narcissistic personality and lifestyle trappings to go with it. He even wants to buy protection from New Zealand itself by bringing free fibre optic cable to the island!
It's just hard for me to respect the man, because he's not fighting for information freedom, he's fighting for as much cash, status, and power as he can get his hands on.
How are his products illegal? It's not like Skydrive and Google Drive are devoid of pirated content. Also Megaupload was a very valuable service back in the day when there wasn't many upload providers around..
Megaupload was selling access to content, not ability to store data. The users who downloaded data were the ones that had to pay. Only way this type of service is profitable is when it has "stuff" that is wanted by masses of people. And since Megaupload didn't produce/resell anything, illegal content is the only other option.
Also, during the time megauplaod existed, there always were upload providers. Megaupload came quite late into the game.
Of course.... but who pays (and for what, exactly) is somewhat immaterial. You're able to post public links to files and get (effectively) unlimited downloads via Dropbox too. It was a counter-example to your Google.com/yourdesiredfile
Who pays (and why) is hardly immaterial when it has a defining effect on how the site is actually used. There's a good reason as to why Google and Dropbox can easily claim legitimacy while Mega has to struggle.
Maybe I'm cynical but every file locker service makes money selling access to downloadable material that doesn't belong to them, mega was just honest/stupid about it.
I completely agree that there is a distinction, and one I also feel strongly about. But really the only distinction between the pirate bay and megaupload from that point of view is maturity and technical/political savvy. I feel I have to draw the line at a place where selling access to a file locker that you know is mostly used for infringement is ok or I'm a hypocrite. Especially when you look at from a "what should be legal" point of view where you have to consider enforceability rather than a hypothetical ethical question.
Totally agree. He just makes money from other people's work. And manipulate public mind by acting like martyr (for freedom). He is basically a swindler.
It's just hard for me to respect the man, because he's not fighting for information freedom, he's fighting for as much cash, status, and power as he can get his hands on.