The return of the next Megaupload file hosting website, Mega, is not far away! In less than 20 hours, Kim Schmitz, also known as Kim Dotcom and Kimble, will introduce his newest filesharing platform. And he did not choose this day by chance. Exactly one year ago his former Megaupload empire has been closed down by the FBI due to copyright infringement claims, most of them by the Motion Picture Association of America, as well as numerous record label companies based in the US.
These five words make quite a promise. But considering how successful Megaupload has been, everyone expects the new Mega to reach old benchmarks rather quickly. Especially now that Schmitz was able to use all the media coverage on the takedown of Megaupload to his advantage and campaign for his new project.
Of course everyone knows that copyrighted material was stored on the servers of Megaupload. And chances are quite high that similar content will be stored on the new servers as well. Even though that is considered to be illegal, the problem does not lie with the filehosting companies. It’s the users who upload illegal content to the servers, even though warnings have been installed, as they have to click on a checkbox before uploading, agreeing that they will not upload any material they do not own the rights to. But since prosecution in these cases is extremely difficult in comparison to peer-to-peer networks for example, the question remains why piracy remains to be such a big issue.
In Schmitz’s eyes, the problem lies with the Hollywood studios themselves. He claims that most motion picture studios and record label companies still don’t know how to market their products successfully.
In comparison to the times when people rented out DVDs at their local video store, made illegal copies and sold them to friends and peers, nowadays pretty much any user can find his or her way to the so called “warez” sites and pick up download links to copyrighted material,which is stored on the filehoster’s servers. And in comparison to the local “video thief” from twenty years ago, it’s the filehosting companies that make the money nowadays. It has been estimated that Megaupload made a resounding revenue of US$175 million per year!
Even entrepreneurs with clean slates, like the late Steve Jobs, saw the flaws in marketing strategies of the music and movie industries. Otherwise the iTunes store would not have been such a huge success. And of course the numbers speak here as well, with the iTunes store having made US$1.4 billion of revenue in the first quarter of 2011 alone.
Apparently, some bureaucrats see it as the responsibility of the filehosting company to check uploaded files on copyright infringement. This has been a very controversial topic, as one can compare this to banks, who also do not check what is inside of the customer’s deposit box. And in some cases, like Swiss banks, unreported earnings with millions of dollars in the bank account also do not get checked on legitimacy. Maybe we should have a debate on that first…
Anyway, if you are interested in what Kim Schmitz had to say about the closing down of Megaupload and his arrest in New Zealand last year, check out this interview:
The Germafrican 