Can Kim Dotcom Go Legit With Megabox?

Following his arrest and indictment six months ago, MegaUpload founder Kim Doctom may not have those crazy-baller assets the government took away from him, but he still has celebrity friends and a new Internet file sharing project.

Following his arrest and indictment six months ago, MegaUpload founder Kim Doctom may not have those crazy-baller assets the government took away from him, but he still has celebrity friends and a new Internet file sharing project. In addition to endorsements from Alicia Keys and Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas, got a visit from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, as you can see (right) from the Instagram Dotcom tweeted yesterday. The visit from the Apple guru came at an interesting time, as a few hours later Dotcom tweeted about his new project, which has to do with saving artists from the current music industry setup, which, of course, Apple helped create.

"The major Record Labels thought Megabox is dead. Artists rejoice. It is coming and it will unchain you," Dotcom wrote along with the photo below of Megabox, a project he was working on before his government troubles.

It's a music sharing site, which Dotcom, never one for modesty, had even called a competitor to iTunes. In this form, it looks like an app that works like Spotify, allowing users to find and listen to music through a social network. The difference between this project and iTunes (or Spotify), however, is that Dotcom wants to "unchain" artists, giving them most of the profit. "Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works," he told TorrentFreak in December. That MegaKey business model, as GigaOm's Janko Roettgers explains, is an advertising model that swaps ads on third-party websites for MegaUpload display ads.

But that was back in December. With all the criminal and court stuff happening, TechCrunch's Matt Burns doubted Dotcom would have time for his vision, but here we are. We guess having friends in the music business and Internet royalty helps.