Megaupload has been probably the most popular file-sharing sites online. Until, of course, FBI pulled it down and made millions of users lose access to their data. Since then, Megaupload’s founder and main person, Kim Dotcom, has been facing cases related to online piracy and is under house arrest for now. However, that doesn’t seem to have diminished his spirits.
Before Megaupload was shut down, Dotcom was already working on a new music service. The service was being called MegaBox and was actually cloud-based. Now, with Megaupload down, Dotcom seems to have re-focused his energies on this new venture.
It is essentially an alternative way for the artists to directly market their music without having to pay hefty sums to different labels. Dotcom wrote on his Twitter, “The major Record Labels thought Megabox is dead. Artists rejoice. It is coming and it will unchain you.”
With Megabox, Dotcom says, artists will be able to sell their work directly to the consumers and they get to have most of their profit. Not only that, the artists will also get paid for every free download done by the users through a program called Megakey. We are not sure how Megakey works but Dotcom seems quite sure that Megakey will be a successful, alternate monetizing model for free downloads online.
According to him, “The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users, and it works. You can expect several MegaBox announcements next year, including exclusive deals with artists who are eager to depart from outdated business models.”
It seems that some big wigs in the tech world do see potential in Dotcom. This was apparent when Apple’s co-founder, Steve Wozniak, flew all the way to New Zealand to meet Dotcom. Dotcom later stated that Wozniak wanted to help Megaupload users to get their seized data back from the U.S. government.
Source: Venturebeat
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