Most of the chatter surrounding the Megaupload shutdown has circled, sensibly, around the more fantastic elements of the story: Swizz Beatz's maybe-okay-not-really-wait-maybe? involvement in the file-sharing site; the cinematic details of the FBI’s raid on the Megaupload crew’s sweet New Zealand mansion; the larger-than-life hilarity of Megaupload’s 6-foot-6 hero-outlaw chief, Kim Dotcom. Now, though, the Recording Industry Association of America would like to change the topic. Joshua P. Friedlander, RIAA's Vice President of Strategic Data Analysis (what, the President of Strategic Data Analysis had more important things to do?) has something to say. Here he is, in a blog post from yesterday titled "Why Closing Megaupload Matters":
It’s not every day that you encounter a real-life practitioner of Bond-villainous ostentation like Kim Schmitz, aka Kim Dotcom, founder of the now-shuttered file-hosting network Megaupload. The German-Finnish hacker-turned-accused-copyright-infringement-magnate was arrested last Thursday by New Zealand police acting in cooperation with the FBI; he and his business associates, referred to, awesomely, as “the MegaConspiracy” in an indictment filed on January 5th in U.S. District Court, are being charged with “criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale with estimated harm to copyright holders well in excess of $500,000,000 and reported income in excess of $175,000,000.” In happier times, Schmitz raced in the Gumball Rally and bankrolled lavish fireworks displays for his adopted homeland of New Zealand and star-studded music videos featuring artists like will.i.am (literally) singing Megaupload’s praises; shortly before his arrest, he became the world’s top-ranked Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 player, sitting at #1 on the game’s “Kills” and “Free-for-all” leaderboards as of three weeks ago. He was busted the day before his 38th birthday, at a $30 million rented mansion north of Auckland; he was allegedly hiding in a panic room with a sawed-off shotgun, like any innocent person celebrating a birthday.
