Kim Dotcom’s “Mega” file locker website that was set to launch this week, will do so without a large portion of the advertising backing it was set to receive, as Mediaworks, the company that organised the campaign was pressured by music labels into shutting them down.
Initially scheduled to appear on over 500 radio stations, Mega would have had a big splash across different mediums. Now though it’ll make far less of an impact, which according to Dotcom, is because the music labels interfered “Not blaming Mediaworks. They are a great company with great people. It’s the music labels that are abusing their power, again,” reads Dotcom’s tweet on the matter.
An insider at MediaWorks told NBR that #Mega ads were pulled in response to pressure from music and movie advertisers. nbr.co.nz/opinion/mediaw…
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) January 16, 2013
Not blaming Mediaworks. They are a great company with great people. It’s the music labels that are abusing their power, again.
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) January 16, 2013
Apparently some music labels complained to Mediaworks about our radio ads. Booking of over 500 ad plays terminated. Wow!!!
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) January 16, 2013
Mega is still set to go ahead with its launch on 18th January, one year after the original Megaupload shut down and raid on his New Zealand home. In the mean time he has contacted several other media companies in a hope that they will take up the mantle and agree to run the Mega ads without fear of the music labels.
The new website will operate in a similar fashion to Megaupload, but with far more safeguards for Dotcom and the other staff that run the website. Mega will feature heavy encryption, making it impossible for those running the site to know what files people are uploading and downloading. That way they are completely absolved of responsibility as there is no way they could be aware of any illegal activity occurring within the site.
Megaupload at its peak was serving tens of millions of people a day. Will Mega be as popular a year on?
A secondary layer of protection will also be put in place, in the form of legal agreements with film studios. If a studio wishes to make use of the site’s deletion tool, which lets companies go in and remove copyright protected material from user’s uploads, they must first agree never to sue Mega.
