Largely painted by U.S. media in the aftermath of his January arrest as a childish, self-indulgent, gun-toting oaf, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom gets a surprisingly comprehensive and nuanced overview in an industry trade serving a not-so-sympathetic constituency, The Hollywood Reporter.In the magazine’s 5,700 cover story titled “The Nerd Who Burned Hollywood” this week, writers Daniel Miller and Matthew Belloni talk to the German entrepreneur’s lawyers, friends and business associates (they were unable to get access to the subject himself), revealing Dotcom to actually be more of a Steve Jobs wannabe than self-described “Dr. Evil” of the hacking world.
“He basically sums up the piracy debate that has only grown in the aftermath of the failure of the SOPA and PIPA legislation,” said Belloni, who told paidContent in an email Wednesday that he and Miller spent about two months working on the project.
“To Hollywood, those pictures of Dotcom traveling the world in yachts and racing supercars and partying with models were the equivalent of flipping a middle finger at content owners. But online, and especially in the file-sharing community, he was a god,” Belloni added.
“We tried for months to get him on the phone (we even offered to go to New Zealand) but his lawyers wouldn’t allow him to talk to us. We did get the lawyers, though. What surprised me about reporting the piece was that it seems Dotcom’s ultimate goal was to become a so-called ‘legit’ media mogul. He wanted to be Steve Jobs, and he certainly didn’t think of himself as a pirate. It will be very interesting to see how this case plays out
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“He basically sums up the piracy debate that has only grown in the aftermath of the failure of the SOPA and PIPA legislation,” said Belloni, who told paidContent in an email Wednesday that he and Miller spent about two months working on the project.
“To Hollywood, those pictures of Dotcom traveling the world in yachts and racing supercars and partying with models were the equivalent of flipping a middle finger at content owners. But online, and especially in the file-sharing community, he was a god,” Belloni added.
“We tried for months to get him on the phone (we even offered to go to New Zealand) but his lawyers wouldn’t allow him to talk to us. We did get the lawyers, though. What surprised me about reporting the piece was that it seems Dotcom’s ultimate goal was to become a so-called ‘legit’ media mogul. He wanted to be Steve Jobs, and he certainly didn’t think of himself as a pirate. It will be very interesting to see how this case plays out
Read the full story.