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DOTCOM saga - updates
IainB:
Mega is incorporated as an NZ company, and its articles of association, AGM decisions and shareholder changes, etc., are detailed on the NZ Companies Register: https://www.business.govt.nz/companies
It's a relatively transparent system that the public can access, and which needs to be easily accessible so that directors of NZ companies can update their company's status - e.g., file an Annual Return.
I was looking at the Mega details about a year ago, and it was evident that there had been a series of decisions by the Board to accept significant changes to the ownership, and someone with a Chinese-looking name (could have been a Kiwi) appeared to have become a majority shareholder, with Dotcom progressively reducing his share to what looked like (from memory) a non-controlling or insignificant stake, whilst others had increased their shares/proportions. One shareholder in NZ seemed to have been allocated a small stake. I surmised that this was possibly as part of an employee share-incentive scheme. I did at the time wonder what was going on, as it certainly seemed that Dotcom was either being removed, or was removing himself, from any controlling interest on the Board. I wondered whether it was in anticipation of his deportation.
wraith808:
I recently heard Kim Dotcom is no longer behind Mega: somehow someone else got 51+% of ownership so he's abandoning/abandoned it and working on a new project. But I have no sources to back it up. Anyone else know anything about this?
Edit: I realize now that it's possible the video linked above may have explained everything I just said, and that relaunching MegaUpload may be the "new" project I heard about. I haven't watched the video yet, as it's late here and I'm heading to bed.
-Deozaan (July 13, 2016, 02:58 AM)
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https://www.rt.com/news/350735-megaupload-relaunch-kim-dotcom/
https://mega.nz/#blog_40
Renegade:
https://www.rt.com/news/350735-megaupload-relaunch-kim-dotcom/
-wraith808 (July 13, 2016, 07:24 AM)
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From there:
“I’ll be the first tech billionaire who got indicted, lost everything and created another billion $ tech company while on bail,” he tweeted.
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Original:
https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/752288313252257793
Still definitely one of the top bad-asses on the Internet. Right up there with John McAfee.
And he just doesn't stop:
https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/762200591170887680
Madman! :D
https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/761407503041073152
Absolutely wild.
IainB:
Well, it's now July 2017 and Dotcom apparently still hasn't been extradited from Kiwiland to Merika. More appeals etc.
@40hz made a prediction:
Prediction: Kim Dotcom is going to be offered a "deal" where he'll be required to plead guilty or "no contest" to some very minor charge(s), pay a fine, be required to make some half-assed public apology to the music/movie industry, and promise to never ever do it again - despite the fact he didn't do anything provably illegal under the law as it's currently written.
In return he'll be required to waive his right to seek any future legal recourse for the incident. And probably consent not to discuss or reveal any of the details about the deal he was offered.
Be interesting to see if he ends up taking it.
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-40hz (November 17, 2012, 06:31 AM)
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To which my response was:
@40hz: I suspect that you might have summarised the situation pretty accurately. It will be interesting to see how close your prediction is as events unfold.
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-IainB (November 17, 2012, 08:30 AM)
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So far, however, it seems to be not panning out that way.
Interestingly, it seems that belated attempts to suppress the facts (by making them a state secret) of the GCSB spying on Dotcom have blown back on the current NZ Prime Minister, Bill English, who was acting Deputy Prime Minister for Prime Minister John Key when the latter was out of the country at the time when the issue of legality of the the GCSB spying was being questioned.
(NZ Herald report copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
Court papers claim Bill English acted 'unlawfully' on Dotcom
25 Jul, 2017 6:58pm 5 minutes to read
Kim Dotcom says new legal action will be taken after a court judgment stated he had been spied on longer than previously admitted.
Photo / Brett Phibbs
Bill English's role in trying to "cover up" spying on Kim Dotcom faces scrutiny after new evidence shows the internet entrepreneur was under illegal surveillance longer than previously admitted.
The Prime Minister has refused to comment citing ongoing legal action - unlike predecessor John Key, who made his initial public apology to Dotcom during a slew of High Court proceedings and went on to answer questions.
But the legal action which disclosed the extended spying also targets English specifically, saying he acted "unlawfully" when he signed a ministerial certificate intended to bury the spying operation forever.
A High Court judgment made public last week included a key detail which stated surveillance on Dotcom went on longer than previously sworn testimony from spies had admitted.
Previous sworn testimony to the High Court has seen Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) staff stating they spied on Dotcom until January 20 2012 - the day of the police-FBI raid which saw Dotcom and three others arrested.
But the latest High Court judgment said the spying continued until March 22 2012 and has drawn focus back to those involved at the time the GCSB first admitted illegal surveillance.
English was at the centre of it and documents filed with the High Court seeking compensation for the illegal spying include allegations English "acted unlawfully" when the spying was about to come out.
Prime Minister Bill English has refused to comment on the spying allegations, citing ongoing court action.
Prime Minister Bill English has refused to comment on the spying allegations, citing ongoing court action.
The original claim against the GCSB stated "the Honorable Bill English acted unlawfully in signing the ministerial certificate suppressing all details of the GCSB's involvement" in the police raid on Dotcom.
English came to be involved when the possibility of spying emerged in 2012 during a court hearing in the Dotcom case.
In the weeks leading up to it being made public the GCSB went to English, who was acting Prime Minister at the time because Key was out of the country, to try to have its involvement made a state secret.
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ARSTechnica also have an interesting take based on the above news report, with the post: NZ judge: Our spies surveilled Kim Dotcom for 2 months longer than admitted.
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As a New Zealand citizen, I am really saddened to read of this, because, whereas I had previously considered Bill English to be a straight-up-and-down Kiwi politician and a good choice, it now seems that the actions of this new Prime Minister (who was appointed earlier by PM John Key when the latter resigned) might well fail the Cadbury ethics rule-of-thumb:
"The rule of thumb is that, if a business process can not stand the hard light of scrutiny, then there is probably something unethical about it." - Sir Adrian Cadbury (Chairman of the then Quaker family-owned Cadbury's) in his prize-winning article on Business Ethics for Harvard Business Review circa 1984.
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Voters of principle could certainly encounter some difficulty supporting or voting for a political candidate and party leader who was perceived to have been shown as being less than ethical or hadn't been squeaky-clean in his involvement in an apparent legal fiasco (the Dotcom raid) that continues to generate a bad - and possibly worsening - smell, as it works a tortured path through the (hopefully objective) NZ judicial system.
The judicial system itself is also likely to be under some scrutiny here by concerned citizens, because it's not so long ago that the justices decided NZ was now mature and ethical enough and had sufficient legal brains to hold its own NZ Supreme Court of final appeal, having previously relied on the UK's Privy Council in that role.
Not only that, but also, over the years, the prodigious and persistent Kiwi judicial reformist and vexatious activist irritant of the judiciary, one Vincent Ross Siemer, has - like a solitary "White Knight" - consistently shone that unwanted hard light of scrutiny on the flaws in the NZ judicial system and on any debatable actions/decisions of the judiciary, per his blog (Kiwis First News), books and reports - e.g., refer Judicial Entitlement and Oppression Beg Reform, and Kiwisfirst.co.nz 2014 New Zealand Judge Survey (PDF).
IainB:
February 2018, and the Dotcom case continues to work its tortuous path through the judicial system, and I continue to remain unimpressed with NZ's general performance in this matter so far.
I today spotted a rather good summary of the Dotcom history and legal issues. Worth a read, and also a watch/listen to the Mega Upload music video - which is quite cleverly done. (That sounds like Macy Gray's somewhat gravelly voice towards the end.)
Kim Dotcom: The Copyright Case that Should End but Won't
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