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onwards when the content was disguised. He told the coders: “There’s a new technology there. There might be something that allows us to do it if we program it in Java script.” Ortmann and van der Kolk went away and worked on the problem. They came back a few days later. Recently-released HTML5 was the answer. “We found a way,” they told Dotcom. “We think it is possible. We don’t think anyone else is doing anything like it.”

The key difference for Mega would be encryption. “We are living in a time when you have the threat of cyberwar and hackers and government spying,” says Dotcom. “People are getting more and more aware of that and they are looking for a place where they can feel that they are safe.” With everything that happened in the Megaupload raid, Dotcom believed they had cause to be fearful and he had the personal motivation to do something about it.

Concern around comparisons to Megaupload led to lawyers being summonsed to examine the concept.

“It isn’t like Megaupload,” says Dotcom. “All the lawyers who looked at it came to the same conclusion. It is a completely new innovation.”

Every website allowed users to upload and download content, he explained. At a basic level, that’s how any content is viewed online — it needs to be transferred from servers to the computer accessing the information. “Just because you can do that, doesn’t mean that they are all the same.” Mega was different, he says, because it came from a different place. “It is more about privacy and users’ rights and the safety of their files.”

Not only was it new but the fundamental concept struck at the heart of the allegations against Megaupload. One of the underpinning allegations of the FBI indictment was that the Megaupload accused knew there was copyrighted material on their website. The indictment included emails sent back and forth clearly showing an awareness of copyrighted material.

The answer, through Mega’s encryption, was to create a website in which no one knew what was stored — other than the people who had uploaded the material. The encryption worked in such a way that people’s information was able to be accessed by them alone — whether it be home baking recipes, blueprints for a house or a copyrighted movie. There was no way the Mega team could be accused of aiding and abetting copyright infringement, because it was now impossible for them to know if ripped movies existed on their servers.

Ortmann and van der Kolk were captivated at the idea of putting seven years of delayed inspiration into a new business. They recall going to legal meetings and drifting off from the discussions to ponder architecture and code for the new business. As soon as the meetings ended, the pair would race back to keyboards. As work progressed,

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