December 26, 2024, 4:16 pm | Read time: 8 minutes
Some see Kim Dotcom as a kind of Internet freedom fighter. For others, he is a criminal impostor, a loudmouth – and if the US authorities have their say, Kim Dotcom is a criminal who should be behind bars for serious copyright infringements. The 50-year-old is now facing extradition from New Zealand, his adopted country since 2010, and he may soon have to stand trial in the USA. TECHBOOK takes a look back at what exactly led to this and all the information on current developments.
Kim Dotcom is undoubtedly one of the biggest names on the internet. Born Kim Schmitz in Kiel in 1974, he joined the hacker scene in the late 1980s. He soon became known for founding the file-sharing platform Megaupload but also for a rather pompous appearance and scandals. For many years, various major Hollywood studios and the US music industry association RIAA have been trying to sue Kim Dotcom for multiple copyright infringements. Kim Dotcom has moved his life to New Zealand, in supposed safety from criminal prosecution. This could soon come to an end. According to the daily newspaper The New Zealand Herald, New Zealand’s Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith has decided that the controversial entrepreneur must be extradited to the USA. However, he has no intention of leaving.
Overview
Kim Dotcom Faces Extradition to the USA – and a Trial There
“I have carefully reviewed all the information,” Goldsmith explained according to a ministry spokesperson, “and have decided that Mr. Dotcom should be extradited to the US to stand trial.”
The order was signed on August 15. In the next step, Kim Dotcom will be given the opportunity to obtain detailed advice on the matter. One of his lawyers has already commented on this on X (formerly Twitter). They want to obtain a judicial review in the High Court. And: “The fight for justice continues. The world is watching.”
Kim Dotcom: Internet Freedom Fighter or Criminal?
The question of whether Kim Schmitz, alias Kim Dotcom, is an impostor is a divisive one. The dazzling Internet pioneer has always and obviously quite deliberately operated on the edge of legality with his business models. He must be given credit for one thing: Kim Dotcom has a feel for how people want to use the Internet for themselves. To a certain extent, Kim Dotcom has helped shape the sending and distribution of videos, music, documents, and other media via the Internet. A look back.
The Personal History of Kim Dotcom
The young Kim Schmitz probably had no other option than to escape into the world of video games. At home, he and his mother suffered from his alcoholic father’s outbursts of rage. The colorful world of computer games offered the teenager a few hours of escape from his violent everyday life.
As computer games are very expensive, he soon became intensively involved in hacking the copy code of the games. Already part of the scene, he made a name for himself as a hacker in the early 1990s. Under the pseudonym “Kimble,” Kim Schmitz supplied young PC gamers with illegal copies of software, including entire operating systems such as Windows.
At that time, Windows was not yet available for free but cost several hundred German marks. If you also wanted to use the Office programs Word or Excel on your computer, you had to put at least 500 Deutschmarks on the counter—quite a lot of money. Kim Schmitz knew that, too. The Internet pioneer used a technical process to set up an illegal distribution network for cracked software.
Kim Schmitz’s two faces were already apparent back then. He had an enormous technical understanding and, at the same time, recognized the entrepreneurial potential. However, the hacker repeatedly overstepped legal boundaries and was therefore regarded as a black sheep in the hacker scene. The countless users of his pirated software, on the other hand, saw Kim Schmitz as a kind of freedom fighter because he made expensive software available to the masses.
Consultant at Deutsche Telekom
Ultimately, Kim Schmitz initiated the first discussion about prices and distribution models for media of all kinds. It remains to be seen whether the hacker acted on this impulse. In any case, it was only a few years before all media was distributed digitally and legally via the Internet.
In 1994 – at just 20 years old – Kim Schmitz was sentenced to two years’ probation for fraud and gang-related theft, among other charges. He avoided imprisonment because he cooperatively shared his knowledge of the scene with the authorities.
It almost seemed as if the young man had learned his lesson. As a result, he mutated into a young entrepreneur and founded a company dealing with data and copy protection. Kim Schmitz even received a consultancy contract with Deutsche Telekom at the end of the 1990s. However, this can also be interpreted as a silent agreement. This is because Kim Schmitz discovered considerable security flaws in the D1 mobile network thanks to a tip from the hacker scene. Thanks to the tip, “consultant” Kim Schmitz helped Telekom to eliminate these deficiencies.
Founding of the Megaupload Company
In 2002, Kim Schmitz briefly hit the headlines because he was sentenced to a suspended sentence and a fine for insider trading in connection with shares. The entrepreneur then moved to Hong Kong. There, Kim Schmitz founded the file-sharing platform Megaupload, which operated a worldwide network from 2005 onward. Among other things, copies of the latest movies were transferred to people’s living rooms via the network. This alone cast a certain amount of doubt on the business model.
The company expanded faster and faster, offered premium access, and otherwise financed itself through advertising. For Megaupload users, the service seemed professional and not illegal in principle. Nevertheless, most users must have been aware that downloading a movie that has just been released in the cinema is not right.
File sharing in itself is not illegal. Only the sharing of copyrighted content is. However, it was precisely this content that could be sent almost perfectly from computer to computer via Megaupload, which also accounted for most of the traffic. At peak times, Megaupload was responsible for four percent of all Internet traffic. As a result, the authorities soon became aware of the company.
Streaming services did not play a role in the late 2000s due to insufficient bandwidth. This fueled the success of the Megaupload platform, which made Kim Schmitz famous and rich. He enjoyed his life to the full. On his YouTube channel, he flaunted his exuberant parties on luxury yachts and in villas or showed off his countless trips – to Monaco, for example.
Targeted by the Judicial Authorities for Years
The judicial authorities were already hot on the heels of the company at the time. It all came to a head in 2012. Kim Schmitz, who had relocated to New Zealand two years earlier and was now operating as Kim Dotcom, was arrested shortly before his 38th birthday along with other Megaupload masterminds. During a raid on his property, numerous pieces of evidence were seized. The authorities also froze his assets, confiscated his vehicles, and shut down his website after an investigation by the FBI. The news made headlines on all news channels worldwide. However, the internet pioneer was soon released on bail.
The USA has been trying to enforce Kim Dotcom’s extradition in court since 2012. If the request is successful, Kim Dotcom could face criminal proceedings and a long prison sentence. In 2017, a court in New Zealand finally ruled that Kim Dotcom could be extradited to the USA based on an allegation of fraud. The ruling was later confirmed by two other courts.
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Kim Dotcom Wants to Stay in New Zealand
The entrepreneur successfully took legal action against his impending extradition. Citing legal errors, he appealed to the Supreme Court and was able to obtain a review of the previous proceedings. The raid on Kim Dotcom’s property was subsequently declared unlawful. The then Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key, even had to publicly apologize to Kim Dotcom due to the illegal wiretapping and surveillance of his computers.
Incidentally, three of his comrades-in-arms were arrested along with Kim Dotcom in 2012. One of them has since died. Two others – Mathias Ortmann (head of technology at Megaupload) and Bram van der Kolk (responsible for programming the software) – avoided extradition to the USA by agreeing to face trial in New Zealand. In the summer of 2023, the verdict was handed down, sentencing the two men to two years and seven months and two years and six months in prison, respectively, for fraud and other offenses. The court, therefore, stayed below the target of 10 years, as both apparently agreed to testify against Kim Dotcom.
How Kim Dotcom’s trial would continue initially remained open, as did the issue of extradition. This is now more topical than ever. But the 50-year-old is still unimpressed. “I love New Zealand,” he wrote on X on Thursday (August 15). “I’m not leaving.”
While he mainly makes political statements on the platform, Kim Dotcom’s Instagram account provides more private insights into his life. He has been married to lawyer Elizabeth Donnely (his third wife) since 2018 and has a total of six children.
The German original of this article was published in August 2024.