[ryanpers]

I was neutral on this guy until I read the wired story, and then I became a fan.

He is a self made man (way more so than romney!), he suffers from persistent discrimination (overweight) and he has cycled thru the hero's journey.

I have heard a lot of these "major success stories", but they are people who have been put in ideal situations and then they made the best of it. That is just emotionally dead for me. Kim's story is more interesting because it is relevant to ME. I can imagine myself in the same spot, and it overlaps with my own personal history (timewise) a bit too.

Ultimately, I believe there is minimal legal differences between youtube in the early days (which was made successful via RAMPANT piracy), and megaupload.

Screw the government.

[sanswork]

You are skipping over his history of fraud, embezzlement, theft, etc.

[andoriyu]

and how he started making even "bigger" air than RIAA and MPAA.

[illuminate]

"He is a self made man (way more so than romney!)"

Most every con artist is.

"he has cycled thru the hero's journey"

Now, I think he's gotten a raw, horrid deal from how his most recent case has been approached, certainly. The most he has in common with "the hero's journey" is that his persona is based entirely on myth and self-propagated legend. His claims of personal genius are for the most part fluff and lies, pushed to credulous journalists. Heck, he couldn't even win Quake and Call of Duty bouts without being caught using aimbots and other chicanery.

I may be reading too far into this and his story is more interesting than the man himself, which I agree.

[CrankyPants]

What's with the unnecessary injection of US presidential partisan politics?

We should be better than that around here.

[jakeonthemove]

He did quite a lot of shady and downright illegal things, too. He's definitely a self made man, though...

Change the government.

[rscale]

He's a career criminal.

He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading.

He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal and a con man.

I find it shocking that so many people are eager to lionize this sociopathic asshole.

Screw Kim Dotcom.

[jpxxx]

Why can I only upvote this once? This man is needy garbage who doesn't rate any more attention from the industry that enabled his earlier bullshit.

[kefs]

Did you find it shocking when the Prime Minister of a nation apologized directly for the ridiculous abuse of power and error in execution?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/national/news/video.cfm?c_id=15030...

[res0nat0r]

Any raid being apologized for by the PM has nothing to do with his previous exploits which he has already been indicted and prosecuted for.

[radicaldreamer]

Okay, so if he's been prosecuted for it and served his time, then he's fulfilled his debt to society, no?

[danielweber]

It means "he's a self-made man" is a claim which needs to be shot down, and that's the claim that was being shot down.

[lmm]

How so? If he committed some crime, got convicted, did the time, then started a business and bootstrapped to success, how is that not a self-made man? A great many successful entrepreneurs (Branson comes immediately to mind) were criminals before they were successful.

[PostOnce]

Some people find it hard to understand that it's possible for an investigation to be mishandled and the person being investigated to still be a criminal.

[DanBC]

No, because rule of law is important even when you're dealing with criminals.

I'm not quite sure of the point you're trying to make?

[larrybolt]

I don't support everything Kim Dotcom does.. but I do support Internet neutrality. I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) the internet is one of the few mediums where the Government cannot stop free speech.. cannot stop people from posting their "real" opinion and the truth. And one of the few places where after reading an article you can do another search quite easy to ensure it is correct what you just read.

Television, Radio, the newspapers etc try to provide us with news a true as possible though I often question myself when watching the news, is this the entire truth? Is there not more behind it, or things they leave out to ease the mind of the crowd.

[ryanpers]

That was years ago when he was a teenager. Many people went thru an "illegal period", his was just... more successful than most.

As for sociopathic, so what? Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths? I find that argument... not compelling.

Like it or not, sociopathy appears to be an integral/essential part of human organizations.

[alexhawdon]

"Many people went thru an 'illegal period'..." What?

I think there's a pretty massive difference between the speeding, soft-drugs, petty vandalism and theft that characterise common illegal teenage behaviours and large scale fraud. Even sat behind a keyboard far-removed from your victims I'm sure the difference becomes readily apparent when the number at the bottom of your bank statement is a few digits longer than those of your peers.

[zurn]

That's the problem with the "criminal" term. Don't confuse moral and legalities.

Much better to comment on whether you think he's done something inexcusably wrong or not.

[sanswork]

He was 20 and 27. He wasn't a kid doing stupid things. He was a career criminal.

[kleiba]

As for sociopathic, so what? Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths?

I don't think that's true. If I'm not mistaken, the percentage of sociopaths among CEOs is somewhat higher than among the rest of the population, but that doesn't mean that the majority of CEOs are sociopaths.

[tokenizer]

It still means you're implicating a large group for something they are good at doing, which is manipulating an environment to suit their needs.

If you're going to attack his history or his mental state, than at least be willing to acknowledge the man isn't all bad. From what I've read, it seems like some think once a criminal always a criminal, AND that mega upload was a scam.

[bluedanieru]

I don't get what your point is. Are you defending sociopaths? I mean, yeah sure they are what they are through probably no real fault of their own, but they are a net negative on society's balance sheet. They are a problem that needs to be managed. Maybe back in the day when we had to worry about other animals hunting us for food, and a bit later when we had to worry about other tribes murdering us and taking our things, then yeah sociopaths served a purpose.

They don't now.

(Oh, and sociopaths aren't very great at manipulating their environment. The high-functioning ones, maybe, but most sociopaths are poor, stupid, and often in jail.)

[tokenizer]

I agree that to do better, especially in caring for each other, we need to re-evaluate what we value most.

In a society where money is power however, I don't think you can do much is what I'm saying. Regardless of psychological issues, if someone can function and amass money, then they're regarded as fine and maybe even successful.

My point was people vote with their money and time, and in this case is open. You can't really expect people to care about whether he was a delinquent in some's eyes, because to some, the other side is just as worse.

[mojowo11]

"As for sociopathic, so what? Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths?"

I would ask for a source here, but I already know that you don't have one, you're regurgitating some pop-psych nonsense you once heard that sounded interesting and you assumed was true.

[mprovost]

Steve Jobs and Woz got their start selling Blue Boxes that let you illegally make free phone calls. They just never got caught.

[kaizendc]

Exactly.

It's likely that many people get away without having their "skeletons in the closet" brought into the light of day.

[CrankyPants]

Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths?

...sociopathy appears to be an integral/essential part of human organizations.

Sources?

[jannes]

Not a scientific source: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...

HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881296

[CrankyPants]

Again, I say: sources?

[splicer]

Most CEOs are also career criminals :p

[damian2000]

"Behind every great fortune there is a great crime" -- Balzac

[kamaal]

Everyone understand this.

Let me tell you the problem why most people hate, troll and whine about rich people. Its not because others are rich, its because they aren't.

[owenfi]

If he did all those things (not saying he didn't, might just be incompetence elsewhere) it should've been fairly easy to indict him at the time or on those grounds.

Still seems awful to wrongly impound an entire company with no due process.

[danielweber]

He's been indicted a boatload of times.

[thomasz]

He didn't 'hack for profit'. He was a fence with a modem, nothing more.

[shiven]

Welcome to CAPITALISM 101. All ethics are mere shades of grey. What is bad today will be good tomorrow, the villains will be heroes, the heroes will be losers who could have done more and every starry-eyed sucker aspiring to "make it" will swing like a pendulum within that grey spectrum, like it or not.

So, where in the grey zone are you, today?