We brought you news last week that Kim Dotcom has been on a Twitter/Instagram binge. He loves posting pictures of himself, his kids and all the crazy hijinks he and his friends get into. It was just this past weekend that he posted a picture of his friends riding around on an all-terrain segways and golf carts.
One of the more interesting pictures, however, from last week was Dotcom posing with Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple. The original picture featured a Tweet from Dotcom saying, “MegaWoz. Great guy & supporter of EFF. EFF is helping to give Mega users their files back. Thanks Woz & EFF.” It’s obvious that Dotcom likes the Woz, but is the feeling mutual?
CNET got in touch with the tech luminary to get his thoughts on Dotcom and his fight against the U.S. government. First and foremost, Wozniak says that the attempt to extradite Dotcom to the U.S. was “poorly thought out.” He says that Dotcom is just a “typical IT guy” running a file-sharing service.
He also spoke out on the well-publicized attempts of the U.S. government to prevent Dotcom from accessing any money for legal fees or even basic rights. He said that it was unfair that the U.S. can spend millions on lawyers trying to arrest Dotcom, but won’t extend him the same courtesy.
The most interesting thing is that Wozniak is the first third-party to come out and say that MegaUpload make a conscious effort to remove infringing content from the Web site. The government and rights holders all say that Dotcom would only remove the link, but not the content from his servers. Wozniak says that Dotcom was “doing more than can be imagined” to police copyrighted content on the file-sharing service.
Everything Wozniak says lines up with what Dotcom has been using in his defense so far. It seems to be working well since the MegaUpload founder has secured a number of high-profile wins from securing more money for his defense to having a judge order the FBI to return his data.
As for the government and entertainment industries trying to take down Dotcom, the Woz only had this to say: “When you can’t stop something like a steamroller, get out of the way.”
