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Comment by kayoone | Hacker News Reader

funny, i played Quake2 with Kim Dotcom (aka Kimble) back in the 90s and he was actually very good at it. He went on to built a couple of scammy businesses, got arrested for insider trading and left germany to resurface as the guy behind megaupload which apparently is very successfull, but still a bit shady ;)

Be aware of this guy, his hands are dirty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Schmitz

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He's paid his debt to society. It seems rather unfair to hold what he was doing nearly a decade ago against him now.

Megaupload abides by the DMCA by taking things down when asked. Just because they don't apparently have an under the table deal with media companies like youtube does isn't a reason to say they're "a bit shady".

Want to know why they are shady? Are you able to find their company information or do they still own that PO Box based in Hong Kong? How can you be sure where the money from Mega Companies will go? Do you think they give (or would never give) anything back to the community by paying taxes or by financing any honest no profit initiative? I doubt it. I am not standing with the corporations but a company like Mega, in my opinion, is not their best answer.

To be honest, that falls completely flat trying to reach my bar for "shady". (Legal) tax avoidance is par for the course these days.

Yes right, companies owning millions of dollars (they have 50 million users a day..) shouldn't pay their share of taxes in times like these. But what if "legal tax avoidance" by such companies was one of the very reasons why you and me are now living in "days like these"? I don't want to convince you, I know I can't, but just consider it if you can.

Legal tax avoidance in the United States (I'm not American - qualifier) is a common trait throughout most large businesses. If anything, taking part in avoidance would put Megaupload into the same company as GE, Wells Fargo, DuPont, Boeing, Honeywell... All companies who had revenue in the hundred of millions and billions of dollars, yet still received Government rebates.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073743/Revealed-The...

Furthermore, Google does +2 billion queries daily yet they still only pay between %2-3 in taxes.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/10/googles-...

I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that it doesn't make Megaupload "shady" for using these legal loopholes.

Furthermore, most people in the piracy "scene" know not to use Megaupload because of their quick compliance with DMCA takedown notices - something that's come over years of investment in their technology and takedown procedures. Anything but shady in my opinion.

Exactly what mMark has said.

I am in no way approving of the practice, I'm just saying that it is not shady. It seems for some unknown reason most people have already decided megaupload is shady, and have to start stretching when asked why.

As others have mentioned, Google makes way more money than Mega and has structured their company in such a way to pay very, very little tax. That's legal tax avoidance, the same thing you're complaining about with Mega, and they certainly wouldn't qualify as shady by your definition.

Face it, paying the least amount of tax possible is just another form of optimization, and something most tech people appreciate.

Mark Zuckerberg called his users "dumb fucks" and hacked his competitor and several school journalists' email accounts. Yet we don't hold that against him today. Kim has proved that he's changed, so don't criticize him for past events.

You cant really compare that to screwing people for millions of EUR on purpose multiple times and going to jail for it, but oh well.

I can certainly compare privacy violations to screwing a couple people out of their money. In fact, I'd say Zuckerburg's (alleged) crimes are far worse and that it's a damn shame he hasn't served time.

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