July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

It seems that Kim Dotcom is already having problems with the next version of his Megaupload site, Me.ga.

Dotcom’s cloud service Megaupload was shut down back in January by U.S. and New Zealand authorities due to allegedly enabling copyright infringement. Last week he revealed plans to revamp the cloud locker service under the Me.ga domain name, citing that a .com domain would easily be seized by U.S. authorities without substantial proof of wrongdoing.

However, the Communications Minister of Gabon, the African country that operates the .ga top-level domain, said he has no intention of allowing Dotcom to use the country as a safe haven for copyright infringement violations and plans to suspend it, according to TorrentFreak.

And if that weren’t enough, a group of hackers calling themselves “Omega” have taken over the Me.ga domain and have threatened to sell it to Dotcom’s adversaries. The group said its members are “true pirates” and told TorrentFreak that Dotcom “is a megalomaniac with lawyers … here to take advantage of us all, the nobodies, (and) the artists he wants to profit from.”

Dotcom has stated that Me.ga will launch as planned using a backup domain, which hasn’t yet been revealed.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

There must never be a dull moment in Kim Dotcom’s life.

Sure, he is a massive publicity hound, but he’s an interesting publicity hound. Fresh off rebranding his defunct MegaUpload service as a sparkling new file-sharing service called Me.ga — yes that’s Mega, but it’s also ME dot GA — Dotcom now wants to help build a new fat pipe to online content in the U.S.

Specifically, in fact, to Los Angeles, home of the Hollywood execs who instigated his MegaUpload mega takedown.

One way or another New Zealand needs Pacific Fibre. I think it is important to reboot efforts to make it happen.

—
Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) November 03, 2012

Pacific Fibre was an attempt to create a second link between Australia, New Zealand, and Los Angeles. However, the consortium failed to attracted the $400 million in investment required to lay the 10,500 kilometer (6500 mile) cable and closed its doors as of August.

Now Dotcom, who lives in New Zealand, is proposing rebooting the project — which would surely be helpful to his new file-sharing business, as it needs high-speed global connectivity.

But while Dotcom’s legal problems may be slowly clearing up as both the American and New Zealand governments have significantly fumbled the copyright infringement proceedings against him, he is almost certainly still persona non grata to officialdom and content czars in both countries.

In other words: Dotcom agitating for a new intercontinental broadband cable may very well be the kiss of death to the project. That is, if it weren’t dead already.

At least one Internet user in New Zealand, however, who dubbed the effort megacable, pointed out the fatal flaw:

While I admire the @KimDotcom #megacable plan, there is a tiny flaw. US permission required to connect to USA m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/articl…

—
Rod Drury (@roddrury) November 03, 2012

Image credit: Pacific Fibre; Hat tip: Ars Technica