
Apple Founder “Woz” Visits Kim Dotcom - evo_9
http://torrentfreak.com/apple-founder-woz-visits-kim-dotcom-120621/
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vecinu
Woz is a great guy. He gets involved in a lot of things. I remember watching
the show 'Dancing with the Stars' just to see him dance. He is a great
character.

Personally, I don't support Dotcom's case because he has some blame in the
entire 'Megaupload fiasco'.

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VMG
If you look into [Kim Schmitz'] history, you can see that he is a total
sleazebag.

His achievements are still impressive though.

Edit: clarity

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Timothee
I'm guessing you're talking about Dotcom and not Woz here? :)

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interknot
It's interesting to consider how different the world might be if Jobs and Woz
had been busted for selling blue boxes: <http://paulgraham.com/bluebox.html>

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lanstein
I love that he owns kim.com. Never thought to check.

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astrodust
That alone could buy a nice house if he sold it.

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debacle
"Hey, can I get my files back?"

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jaekwon
I'm not Woz, but I would venture that Woz probably pitched Kim Dotcom on his
new startup FusionIO, which is relevant to file hosting.

Also, it's awesome that Woz turned Kim onto the EFF.

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adventureful
Had no clue DotCom was on Twitter.

<https://twitter.com/#!/KimDotcom>

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firefoxman1
Reading through his tweets, one really interested me:

> _The major Record Labels thought Megabox is dead. Artists rejoice. It is
> coming and it will unchain you.<http://instagr.am/p/MHNAsPMkep/> _

Just another piece of evidence that Megaupload doesn't want to hurt the
artists; they intend to do quite the opposite.

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aes256
_> Just another piece of evidence that Megaupload doesn't hurt the artists and
actually intends to do the opposite._

I wouldn't want to be the one arguing that case.

Sure, some artists used Megaupload to share their own works, but these uploads
were far outnumbered by their illegitimate counterparts.

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Jach
> Sure, some artists used Megaupload to share their own works, but these
> uploads were far outnumbered by their illegitimate counterparts.

Has this been demonstrated yet? (I currently slightly favor your belief but I
could see it being the other case.) I know that Megaupload provided tools for
the labels et al. to remove infringing content in a very easy way (just like
Youtube offers), and there was a lot of outcry from people over their personal
files being lost because they were treating it like dropbox.

~~~
aes256
It was an unspoken truth, as for any other platform or protocol used primarily
for the unauthorised distribution of copyrighted works (P2P networks,
torrents, usenet, etc.)

When called into question, users will argue these platforms/protocols can be
used for legitimate purposes, and point to examples of people using them as
such. In this case it was Megaupload attempting to do this to defend itself.

It doesn't, however, change the reality of the situation.

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Jach
Unspoken truths often turn out to be false. Without hard figures it's a tough
call to say what the reality really is. (I'm still amazed Netflix itself takes
up ~20% of the US internet traffic, and it's all authorized.) For torrent
sites it's easier to get the figures, for Megaupload it isn't. Hence my
curiosity, I guess I'll just have to wait for the trial.

The more interesting case to me is whether one paints a service on distinct
counts of items or on total traffic per item. PirateBay makes it easy to see
what the hottest torrents are (<http://thepiratebay.se/top/all>); I'd be
surprised if any are authorized. If we assume a power law then most of torrent
traffic certainly infringes. For Megaupload, perhaps it was the same. But I'm
more inclined to think Megaupload's distinct counts fall closely in line with
Youtube's--it's trivial for copyright owners to take their content down with
either a DMCA request or the tools the sites provide, meanwhile tons of user-
generated content is appearing that actually belongs to the user. MediaFire
seems like the place to go these days for sharing your songs, even
professional artists use it sometimes. I don't think it's that much of a
stretch to consider that for Youtube and perhaps Megaupload, there is more
non-infringing content than infringing in absolute terms even if the
infringing content takes up the supermajority of traffic.

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aes256
I would personally be beyond astonished if this one turned out to be false.

It's interesting you point to The Pirate Bay's list of most popular torrents
though. The Mega indictment cites an email from one of the alleged
conspirators to another employee instructing said employee to alter the
Megaupload 'Top 100' list. Elsewhere it is alleged that this list did not
accurately reflect the most popular downloads on the site, and that this was
done deliberately to make the site appear more legitimate than it was.

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shellox
Hmm, Woz is a great guy but Kim Schmitz(Dotcom) is an idiot and fraudster.

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runn1ng
Well I know that he made Apple Inc back in 80s, but really, what did Woz do
since then?

Steve Jobs made iTunes, iPod, iPad, iPhone. Woz said some things and was on
dancing with the stars.

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veb
Steve Jobs did _not_ make iTunes, iPod, iPad. He might've drawn a picture and
said, "I want it to look like that.", but he didn't make it.

If I simply drew an interactive touchscreen toilet seat, and had an army of
minions to actually get it to the market, all I'd need to do is sell it.
That's what Steve Jobs did. I'm not saying he's not worthy of your love, but
to say "Steve Jobs did XYZ... what has Woz done?" is quite ignorant,
considering Woz did make the original Apple machines!

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taligent
Firstly, Steve Jobs name is on many of the key patents associated with those
devices and I doubt anyone would think that he didn't have a role in the
design and development.

Secondly, engineers are a dime a dozen. I am one and have met hundreds over my
lifetime. The really key people in business and most rare are those that can
unify the business, marketing, design and technology elements together in a
way that doesn't suck.

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tg3
You should read _Founders at Work_ and _Steve Jobs_. Both paint pictures of
Woz as the guy who quite literally designed and built the Apple I and Apple II
(although not quite as much as Apple I), off of which the company was built.
Without Woz, there is not Apple. There is not technology elements to unify
without him. He is not a dime a dozen.

