<nettime> mega

[sebastian@rolux.org]

[from pirate cinema berlin]


As some of our subscribers have questioned our assertion that Pirate
Cinema's participation in the recycling of daily affairs was entirely
unneeded [*1], we have decided to make another exception, and to address
the seemingly burning question if Kim Dotcom's new dotconz is a good thing
or a bad thing.

Our answer is short. If you're interested in mega.co.nz as a platform to
share copyrighted materials with millions of others, while retaining your
anonymity and privacy, then -- as with any other offer that puts profit
first and piracy second -- you're probably wasting your time. If you're
just looking for a way to store your personal data on a computer that's
beyond your control, then we might be wasting ours as well. However, as far
as we can tell, you're probably asking about the man, not his mission.

Obviously, Kim Dotcom is more than just an opportunistic businessman. He is
the truly megalomanic version of that: not only even more opportunistic,
but also completely unaffected by the restraints that usually come with
commercial success or corporate crime, namely to never publicly display
one's wealth, celebrate the cheap joys it provides, or reveal the bad taste
it entails. As the utter clown he makes of himself, as an ongoing parody of
entrepreneurial ethics that in its very dishonesty appears more honest than
any other enterprise, we find it hard not to love him -- just as it's hard
to deny that the U.S. authorities, by showing such an unusual amount of
overambition and incompetence when they seized his previous venture, have
dealt his new one a very good hand.  But in the end, that's all
entertainment, and while the show must go on, it remains a matter of
personal taste. Many spectators want to see the world saved by a good guy
on the right side of a just cause, while others are happy to delegate that
to the small-time crook who takes on the big-time crook, just for fun and
profit.

Given all that, we find it perfectly understandable why, in the case at
hand, one may prefer to side with more respectable internet entrepreneurs
or venture capitalists, who will articulate their issues with copyright, or
their growing frustration with the entertainment industry, in a much more
nuanced and understated fashion. Like Paul Graham, arguably one of the most
highly respected of them all, who exactly one year ago, when the U.S.
Congress debated the final crackdown on piracy, when Wikipedia went all
lights out, and just while Mr.  Dotcom was busy getting his ass busted in
the safe room of his mansion, proved smart enough not to make any public
statement at all, other than, as archived under
http://ycombinator.com/rfs9.html, issuing a modest "Request for start-ups:
Kill Hollywood".


[*1] http://piratecinema.org/screenings/20130114


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