An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attack on an argument made by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, rather than attacking the argument directly.
I think the point is that ad hominem attacks are actually relevant in this case. The idea might (or might not) be good, but the fact that Kim Dotcom is involved is fishy.
Sure, I wasn't saying that ad hominems are irrelevant here. I said, "aside from ad hominems," because I'm actually curious what technical/social issues are interesting and/or challenging about the idea. In other words, I'm not saying anything about whether the ad hominems already in the replies were good or bad, I simply want to have a separate, parallel discussion about the actual proposal.
An ad hominem call is often a logical fallacy, as in many cases the person can be a very key point in the argument.
If some one is running for president for example then his personal views and life experience can and should be brought into question regardless of what his says in his speeches.
This case isn't different, he isn't talking about global warming he is talking about founding and funding a new company so his past, and current troubles are very much material to the debate and cannot and should not be thrown aside because it might appear to to be an ad hominem.
