Marcel Winatschek

Kim Dotcom’s Most Audacious Upload

Six months after the FBI shut down Megaupload and raided his New Zealand compound with helicopters, Kim Dotcom—born Kim Schmitz, German-Finnish internet millionaire, convicted fraudster, owner of a custom Mercedes with the vanity plate "GUILTY"—decided to become a musician. Not a hobby musician. A musician who would, in his own telling, disrupt the recording industry the way Megaupload had disrupted file distribution. He released tracks aimed directly at the US government, announced plans for a new music platform to replace what had been seized, and conducted himself throughout as someone who understood that staying in the headlines was its own form of leverage. Whether any of the music was good is almost beside the point. The audacity of the pivot was the content.