#INN’s 2012 Person of the Year: Kim Dotcom

When the #INN team sat down to discuss who we would pick for our Person of the Year there was no doubt in any of our minds we would be picking Kim Dotcom. Our 2012 headlines were dominated by Dotcom as the Mega saga played out. However, Dotcom did more than just rule headlines to earn him #INN’s Person of the Year…

From the time of his arrest in January 2012, Kim Dotcom was an underdog. This was apparent by the amount of force used by the police in the raid on Dotcom’s New Zealand mansion. It was clear that the powers behind the arrest were not merely concerned with stopping Kim, but also with painting him and treating him as a terrorist. But obviously Infinity would never pick a terrorist as their person of the year. No, we would choose a hero…

Kim Dotcom, founder of the incredibly popular file sharing website Megaupload, watched as World War III erupted online after the FBI took down his website. Immediately his legal team went to work, winning his freedom and right to be released on bail, since he had not been convicted of any crime. Kim continued to fight a legal fight in New Zealand, winning cases returning his seized assets to him and proving that search warrants used in the January police raid were too vague. This was monumental in exposing the corruption of the New Zealand police force as it later came out that they knew these warrants were no good when they acted on them during the raid. The police had handed over much of the evidence seized through these illegal warrants to the FBI.

Kim Dotcom was not just fighting against the authorities in New Zealand, but also the FBI and the content industry in America. Every time the U.S. pushed against Kim Dotcom he pushed back. As Kim won case after case and more of his freedom, he continued to thumb his nose at the U.S. government who was from the beginning pulling the strings in the Dotcom case. Dotcom is so confident that his rights were horrendously violated by the U.S. that he is now threatening to sue Hollywood for $400 million and use the money to provide New Zealand with free, better quality broadband than they currently have by running an underwater cable to the U.S.

In one year, Kim Dotcom turned his image from that of an Internet criminal and a terrorist into an Internet legend and a champion of Internet freedom. Every legal victory he won for himself was a victory for open Internet. He used the web to win the support of the world’s people. He released videos and songs that were entertaining, but were also inspiring and politically charged to reveal what was wrong with both the American and New Zealand governments. He made himself a household name and an Internet legend with his antics and the fact that while he was fighting for his freedom and the freedom of the Internet, he was doing it in style and while making jokes and providing us journalists with laughs and fun.

Anytime you have someone that has made their fame and fortune through the Internet, being at one time responsible for 7% of all internet traffic, you have someone who should be admired. Anytime that person takes on two different governments one being the U.S. government and Hollywood at the same time, all while defending the freedom of the Internet, you have someone who needs to be honored. And anytime that person has a larger than life personality, and continues to entertain, and claims they are the lovechild of Santa Claus, you have #INN’s Person of the Year.