Friday, September 1, 2017

MegaUpload founder shows off new tech venture K.im | UNLIMITED | CMU

MegaUpload

Kim Dotcom has this week been demoing his latest tech venture, which goes by the name of K.im and utilises an application called Bitcache.

Dotcom, of course, is still fighting extradition to the US where he faces criminal charges for copyright infringement relating to his long defunct former business MegaUpload.

Since the original MegaUpload file-transfer platform was shut down by the US authorities in 2012, Doctom has launched and then stepped back from two other related business ventures, file-transfer service Mega and direct-to-fan platform Baboom.

The new project – which began life under the name MegaUpload 2.0 – sort of combines those two concepts, allowing creators to digitally transfer their content to third parties in return for a micropayment enabled by Bitcache.

Though K.im won’t actually host any content itself, and will instead integrate with other file-transfer and cloud-hosting services like Dropbox and Google Drive.

Talking about the new business, Dotcom told Torrentfreak: “I’m working for both sides. For the copyright holders and also for the people who what to pay for content but have been geo-blocked and then are forced to download for free”.

Of course, like MegaUpload, the new service could be utilised by people illegally distributing other people’s content, only this time not only would they be making music and movie files available without licence, they would be directly earning from their copyright infringement.

Though Dotcom says K.im will include a system akin to YouTube’s Content ID so that rights owners can control third party distribution of their content and, if they wish, choose to monetise that third party delivery and take the money themselves.

Which is nice. Except the entertainment industry has something of a love/hate relationship with YouTube’s Content ID, so that element of the new service won’t necessarily placate the record companies and movie studios who are already suing Dotcom over the old MegaUpload business.

But, unperturbed, Dotcom adds that his new technology “is the holy grail of copyright enforcement. It is my gift to Hollywood, the movie studios, and everyone else”.

[from http://ift.tt/2lvivLP]

No comments: