In the Wild, Wild West-era of digital media, there is no cowboy quite like Kim Dotcom. Part Sean Parker, part Kevin Mitnick, with a whiff of Notorious B.I.G., Dotcom embodies the most savage age of online piracy, having made a fortune on the edges of Internet freedom.
Dotcom, the megamind behind Megaupload, was arrested yesterday in New Zealand, his panic-room door busted down by officials, who found the hacker clinging to a sawed-off shotgun. Dotcom faces up to 55 years in prison if extradited to the U.S. and convicted on charges of racketeering, copyright infringement, and money laundering. The hacker-turned-multimillionaire businessman has been accused of costing the entertainment industry $500 million through pirated content uploaded to his popular file-sharing site, which boasted 180 million registered users and celebrity endorsements from Kanye West to Kim Kardashian.
Before Megaupload was shut down by Federal prosecutors, a statement was reportedly posted on the site calling the charges “grotesquely overblown.”
Dotcom has long been a controversial and flamboyant figure. Pictures of the Megaupload founder online show him with yachts, private jets, and Playboy bunnies in exotic locations such as Monaco, Cuba, and Brazil. According to court filings, prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of $175 million, dozens of bank accounts, as well as sports cars including Mercedes-Benzes, Rolls-Royces, and Lamborghinis (with vanity plates such as “God” and “CEO”).
Long before SOPA, Dotcom saw a potential market in taking advantage of the system–and ran wild with the opportunity. How wild? Here’s a look inside Dotcom’s life of excess–a lifestyle afforded to a guy who’s both tech savvy and unencumbered by business ethics, and who has a taste for shotguns, black Benzes, and wraparound shades.
