Dotcom charges fraction of world awash with copyright breaches

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Dotcom charges fraction of world awash with copyright breaches

3News NZ

PrintzBoard, friend to the Black Eyed Peas and Kim Dotcom

PrintzBoard, friend to the Black Eyed Peas and Kim Dotcom

Last night we looked at the arrest of Kim Dotcom; a police raid using helicopters, the special tactics group and automatic weapons on the home of a man accused of internet piracy.

Tonight we move to the nature of the alleged crime.

In short, Kim Dotcom is accused of internet piracy causing “more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners”, according to the FBI.

What is confusing about this is that the internet is so awash with breaches of copyright that it would be impossible to count them all.

Some of the people whose copyright was allegedly being breached liked Megaupload because it gave them greater control than sites like i-Tunes, for example.

Confused?

Well, in the Kim Dotcom camp is one of the biggest hip-hop acts of all time – the Black Eyed Peas.

Tristram Clayton asks their musical director, Printzboard, why?

Watch the full video

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Comments

10/05/2012 8:16:30 a.m.

rob arnett wrote:

re: Tech bytes have an idea which could reduce tailgating in vehicles.I am trying to find out if it is legal also if the idea has been thought of before. Who could I contact to try and help me . I have contacted a couple of invention promotion firms but they want a large fee [ which can escalate encouraging people with ideas that do not come to anything]. thank you rob

12/02/2012 7:07:44 p.m.

TWE wrote:

I knew there had to be a special reason why they came down on the poor guy so heavily. They have gone to ridiculous lengths to shut him down. The USA government really is owned by the corporations.

9/02/2012 5:43:10 p.m.

Most Obvious wrote:

the us government didn't go after this guy on their own will, but on the urging of giant media conglomerates that are lobbying congress. these are the same companies who support SOPA, and what people don't understand is the underlining motives behind all of this. There is a big shift in how we view media today, and traditional media companies have less market share with the advent of sites like hulu, netflix, youtube, etc. There are so many other people they could have gone after - so why MegaUpload? This is all about control of the internet medium. Kim Schmitz was about to launch his Megabox which, just like @Josh said, would give artists 90% of the sale price. Big media companies and record lables cannot have that, and is why they strong-armed the government into going after Kim Schmitz

9/02/2012 4:22:12 p.m.

Chargone wrote:

we already know that the FBI and other US government institutions use numbers taken straight from absolutely bullshit and completely debunked studies at the word of institutions who's primary financial interest is served best by crippling any act of creativity not under their direct control. on some occasions they've claimed losses to piracy greater than the Gross Product of the entire planets economy. I'd be incredibly suspect of such numbers, personally, even leaving all other factors aside.

9/02/2012 1:42:53 p.m.

Josh wrote:

This is absolutely stupid, this man has done nothing but provide a platform for people to use, you can't arrest him because some users choose to use it for crime, that would be like arresting gun producers because people use them for murder. He followed the law to the letter removing links that were reported as copyright infringement but unless it is reported then they won’t know about it. You can't monitor 700,000+ uploads a day and check each one it would be financial suicide. I also like the timing of his arrest, as Megabox which is the "thing" he mentioned in this interview was in its final stages of development which would of seen music artists get 90% of the sale price on songs and he would even pay artists who let their songs be downloaded for free, it would of destroyed itunes.