Ok, to understand my thoughts you have to spend a bit time, follow the links and watch the videos and sources I linked to (or may be not, if you know them all).
I know it’s complicate and it takes time, but the world isn’t that easy :)
Step by step
- January 18th The whole world protested against a law in the US (SOPA/PIPA).
- January 19th 10am:Apple held an event about spreading iPads in schools (Video).Concerning the iPad platform, have a look at that video Cory Doctorow: The coming war on general computation [28C3] (from Dec. 2011)
- January 19th 11pm:I read that the Police in New Zealand arrested Kim Dotcom (Schmitz), Bram van der Kolk, Finn Batato and Mathias Ortman and shut down the servers of their company megaupload (Press Release FBI: Justice Department Charges Leaders of Megaupload with Widespread Online Copyright Infringement).
SOPA/PIPA
The blackout/strike against SOPA/PIPA seems to be successful
Apples education thingie
As you may know, I am author/writer and I offer my books for free here on that website in different languages (publications). I was curoius and downloaded the iBook Author app for playing around with it. It’s wonderful, perfect … I like it … and I will for sure use it to create a book. I already work with Pages. Pages is old, it is slow, but I like it. Unfortunately the files you produce with iBook Author are tied to the Apple platform. It is not allowed to offer them for free download on my website. I am only allowed to offer them in Apples iBookstore. In Cory Doctorows video I learned, that this idea of appliances is a bad idea. Hm … in general I agree with him … but if you are in a situation like me … why not trying it out?
May be later on an open source project will offer a similar authoring tool.
Nearly the same content that appears as in my printed books is already available in a much better shape here on the website in a free HTML version, with slideshare presentations and videos included and dowanloadable as PDF … ok, I have to think about that.
Kim Schmitz
In the middle of the nineties he was known quite well in Germany, he founded a company called Data Protect and sold it to a serious institution (TÜV Rheinland).
It was the time where the internet was “new” and people started to build “homepages”. There was a huge discussion between him and the CCC.
in German:
- Kim “Kimble” Schmitz’ denkwürdige Auftritte in de.org.ccc, 1996 – 2000
- Nachruf: Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth
In 2001, he had problems with other companies he founded, with inside trading and got in legal trouble. The wikipedia article about him is growing and growing over the day … read it.
2011 Auckland New Year Fireworks
- he seems to be a poser, a cheater and he likes luxury cars, parties and girls
… ok … sounds like someone who needs a therapy treatment … as many others …
He achieved early notoriety by being the subject of an advanced-for-its-time flash animation video called Kimble Special Agent (right mouse click on the blue box and click play)
Seems to me that the flash animations partly came true …
He’s a meme’s dream :)
The Best Worst Photos of Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom
The Indictment
*** PROPERTY SUBJECT TO FORFEITURE ***
- 1. $175,000,000 in United States dollars;
- … 64 more bank accounts …
- … 15 more cars …
- 68. 2005 Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM, VIN WDB2093422F165517, License Plate No. “GOOD”;
- 69. 2004 Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM AMG 5.5L Kompressor, VIN WDB2093422F166073, License Plate No. “EVIL”;
- 70. 2010 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG L, VIN WDD2211792A324354, License Plate No. “CEO”;
- 71. 2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop Head Coupe, VIN SCA2D68096UH07049; License Plate No. “GOD”;
- 72. 2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, VIN WDD2120772A103834, License Plate No. “STONED”;
- …
- 75. 2007 Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG, VIN WDD2163792A025130, License Plate No. “KIMCOM”;
- 76. 2009 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG, VIN WDC1641772A542449, License Plate No. “MAFIA”;
- …
- 81. 2010 Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG, VIN WDD2163742A026653, License Plate No. “HACKER”;
- 82. 2005 Mercedes-Benz A170, VIN WDD1690322J184595, License Plate No. “FUR252”;
The A-Class (A170) was may be a typo or the neighbours car :)
I love the license plates :) (GOOD, EVIL, CEO, GOD, STONED, KIMCOM, POLICE, MAFIA, HACKER)
In the morning Elliot Kembers took photos at “dotcom mansion” (Kim Schmitz gets his cars seized!)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/elliottkember/sets/72157628949521545
Megaupload
Megaupload, the file-sharing service of the company, allowed all users to upload files to the service. After a successful file upload, the user was given a unique URL which allowed others to download the file.
The service was available in two flavors: basic and premium. The basic service was available for free and allowed users to upload files of up to two gigabytes. Free users could not download files larger than one gigabyte, however. Registered free users were offered 200 gigabytes of total file storage. Premium users had unlimited file storage – more on Wikipedia ¨
There are more of these kind of companies.
Today in the morning, when I was out for buying croissants and the baker told me, that the site isn’t fully down. He tried multiupload.com and it was possible for him to reach his files.
The baker told me that – in Fitou!
Seems that the service was quite popular :)
According to the FBI:
180,000,000 users, 13th mostfrequently visited website on the entire Internet, an average of 50 million daily visits, and to account for approximately four percent of the total traffic onthe Internet
MegaUpload Accounted for a Quarter of All Corporate Traffic—More than Dropbox
According Alexas 100 topsites: No. 72 website of the world and No 22 in France.
Megaupload wasn’t just for pirates: angry users out of luck for now
The Video
First watch it!
The fat guy in the middle (1:50) is Kim Schmitz. The other people are more or less simply stars (Will.i.am, P Diddy, Kanye West, Chris Brown, Jamie Foxx, Kim Kardashian, Lil John, The Game, Floyd Mayweather, Serena Williams, Ciara) .
There are two insteresting stories around this video:
- Universal Censors Megaupload Song, Gets Branded a “Rogue Label”
- Megaupload to Universal: You’ve Got Some Explaining To Do
While I am writing this blog post, the video was watched 50,000 times!
The Data – Where is it now?
megaupload.com stored nearly 25 PetaByte client data. Who has access to that data now?
Is is possible to do the same with Microsoft Azure Data, Amazon Cloud Data, Dropbox Data and other cloud stored data?
Anonymous
During the night and in the morning Anonymous supporters attacked the websites of the Department of Justice, the FBI and Universal Music Group, among others. The hacktivists used a technique called a Distributed Denial of Service to overload their targets with web traffic and effectively force them offline.
Grupo hacker afirma que tirou site do FBI do ar
Difference The Pirate Bay and Megaupload
Megaupload charges it’s users, The Pirate Bay asks for donations. Big difference.
Questions to me
- What was good and what was wrong with the business model of megaupload?
- What is good and what is wrong with the business model of Universal?
- What is good and what is wrong with the business model of Apple concerning iBook Author and iBookstore?
- What could be a better business model for all of them?
- Is there a way for Authors, Writer, Journalists to get paid for their work beside the old model?
WHAT A DAY/NIGHT :)
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