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people not willing to pay for content. You can't chill the most important future industry — technology and the internet — because of the interests of one group. You can't do it because the loss you have from something like that is much bigger than the gain with that one group.”

The act freed the internet, Dotcom says. It liberated search engines and empowered internet service providers. He says the investment required to make the existing takedown tools function was small, when compared against the later-quoted US$500m Megaupload was claimed to have cost the music companies in just two weeks. “They could have sorted this piracy problem out. They could have sent us a letter, they could have said we want to sit down with you guys, we have some concerns. They always saw us from day one as an evil monster that needs to be destroyed.

“It is similar to how it was with [the battle for supremacy between competing early video technologies] Sony and Betamax. They didn't really make much of an effort to find much of a solution with that. They just went full on attacking the new technology. Hollywood, if you look at their record, they have always attacked innovation and new technologies. Copyright law, for them, is to ensure that it stays the way it is and that new technologies do not interfere with their business model.”

AS HOLLYWOOD AND other copyright holders turned to engage with Megaupload, Dotcom developed infrastructure which allowed the website to deal with the demands being made. He hired a team of people in the Philippines working 24 hours a day on Hollywood's demands. “Takedown” notices of copyrighted material, sent under the DMCA, were handled faster than the law required, Dotcom says.

“The DMCA says you have to take things down within 24 hours. On the internet, in 24 hours, if you post a movie, that thing can be downloaded 100,000 times, easy. So we made sure our average takedown time was much lower than that. We actually achieved three hours. The law said 24 hours, and on average from receiving a takedown notice to taking it down, we did it in three hours.”

The speed was almost a full day ahead of competitors, says Dotcom. Others would automate the service, deleting the file 24 hours after it

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