Kim Dotcom has launched a new website as the successor to his Megaupload file-sharing site - with the weblink going back to the small West African nation of Gabon.
The "Mega" business has been forecast as a replacement for Megaupload, which was shut down in January. Mr Dotcom and three colleagues were arrested by New Zealand police for extradition to the United States after FBI charges they had committed criminal copyright violation through the site.
Signs of an effort to create distance from the US start with the new web address me.ga. The "ga" suffix stands for Gabon, the former French colony now a republic of 1.6 million people.
The new address takes users to kim.com, which has put out a call for investors, app developers and web hosting services. It added: "Unfortunately we can't work with hosting companies based in the United States. Safe harbour for service providers via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been undermined by the Department of Justice with its novel criminal prosecution of Megaupload.
"It is not safe for cloud storage sites or any business allowing user generated content to be hosted on servers in the United States or on domains like .com/.net. The US government is frequently seizing domains without offering service providers a hearing or due process."