Kim Dotcom

Kim Dotcom in 2013

Kim Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz; 21 January 1974), also known as Kimble and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is a German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur and political activist who resides in Glenorchy, New Zealand. He was the founder of the file-sharing Megaupload platform which was closed down by the United States Department of Justice in 2012 for alleged copyright infringement.

Quotes

• Everyone tells me not to say the things I do. I'm very direct, very undiplomatic. Everyone tells me to stop talking about my hacker history, about my lifesytle, but I don't give a ****, I've just stayed the way I am. Over the past few years I realised that if I was to run a company or a fund, I needed to be the captain and not listen to anyone else. I needed to be the ruler of my world otherwise it was never going to work.
• [On his early history as a hacker] Every hack was a trophy. I had a big feeling of power because I was running the most important worldwide mailbox exchanging hacking information and I knew what was really going on.
  • From an interview by Amanda Hall, as cited in "City Profile: From convicted hacker to dotcom backer", The Telegraph (28 January 2001)
  • Then known under his birth name of Kim Schmitz.

• They're treating us like a Mafia, man! [...] It's unbelievable. It's only because they cannot extradite us to the US just for copyright violation. If they treat us as some sort of international criminal conspiracy, they can.
  • Interview, as cited in "Inside the Mansion—and Mind—of the Net's Most Wanted Man", Wired (18 October 2012)
  • At the beginning of the United States' attempts to extradite Kim Dotcom and his six codefendants.

• [Defending his purchase of a rare signed copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf] I'm a [video game] Call of Duty player right ... It's all about World War II and how you play and I'm a big fan of that. I've bought memorabilia from Churchill, from Stalin, from Hitler.
• Well let me make it absolutely clear, I'm not buying into the Nazi ideology. I'm totally against what the Nazis did.
• I think in another 100 years that book will probably go up in value times 10.
  • From an interview on 3 News (25 March 2014), as cited in "Hitler manifesto just an investment - Mana", NZ Herald (26 March 2014)

• What the US Govt is doing reminds me of what I learned in school about Nazi Germany. Ironic, Hollywood is run by mostly Jewish entrepreneurs.
  • Tweet (6 January 2015), as cited in "Kim Dotcom tweets upset Jewish community", NZ Herald (6 January 2015)

• [T]he obedient US colony in the South Pacific just decided to extradite me for what users uploaded to Megaupload.
  • Post on X/tweet (13 Augiust 2024), as cited in Lewis Jackson and Lucy Craymer "Kim Dotcom to be extradited from New Zealand after 12-year fight with US", Reuters (15 August 2024)
  • New Zealand Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith had signed a United States extradition order for Kim Dotcom.