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Megaupload Host Wants Out
angry tapir writes "Carpathia Hosting, a U.S. company hosting the frozen data of millions of users of the file-sharing site Megaupload, has gone to court to argue it should not keep the files if it is not being paid. The company has filed an emergency motion in the U.S. Federal Court in the state of Virginia seeking protection from the expense of hosting the data of up to 66 million users. 'While Carpathia has never had access to the data on Megaupload servers and has had no mechanism for returning that data to Megaupload users, we have been attempting over many weeks to resolve this matter to the satisfaction of all parties involved, in a manner that would allow for Megaupload users to be in a position to ultimately recover their data,' Brian Winter, the company's chief marketing officer says."
"No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ..."
constitution.org
Seems like a dead letter these days. Encryption keys, laptop seizures, cloud seizures, warrantless email searches, GPS tagging, etc.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
...just like we have to pay for any other copyright enforcement actions?
It's ironic that a HOSTing company would be going to such lengths to keep data HOSTage. I guess it's another way to make money off of people's fear of being caught red-handed with stolen files.
Illegal filesharing? Is it good or is it whack?
It totally stinks that the high percentage of legitimate Megaupload customers are getting screwed 'cos of the US bully-boy tactics. What about shutting down the US Postal Service because of all the illegal activity that enables? People do bad things with telephones too. Hey, don't people use cars as getaway cars ... let's shut down Ford and GM while we're at it!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
You know it makes sense!
They are afraid that the case against "Kim Dotcom" implodes and he sues (which, given the circumstances is not unlikely). It will be interesting to see the outcome of this. Kim Dotcom certainly has the funds and is willing to fight this to the end.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Not a single Megaupload user has come forward and claimed the data in their account is their data.
Obligatory [citation needed].
Millions of users and you say not even one has tried?
How about this article, which lists multiple users making the claim you say doesn't exist by name: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/megaupload-wasnt-just-for-pirates-angry-users-out-of-luck-for-now.ars
Your claim is fucking ridiculous. There are 25 PB of data. It's nearly impossible for there not to be significant amounts of legitimate data on there.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The megaupload servers will have the details of all the users and their uploaded pirated stuff in their accounts. Just bill their credit cards.
Seriously, you realize that this is the start of the process not the end, those servers contain massive amounts of copyright infringement logs and a paid account is linked to a credit card and thus to a person. So there will be a mass of investigations to follow from this.
There's no way a court will let that data be destroyed.
Where were they public facing?
The EFF helped set up an effort for U.S. users of MegaUpload to get their data back. They should have some information on how many requests they've gotten.
http://www.megaretrieval.com/
"Carpathia Hosting has created the website www.MegaRetrieval.com to help lawful users in the United States work with EFF to investigate their options for retrieving their legitimate, non-infringing files from Megaupload."
Any previous judgements about similar cases where the goods are physical?
Say, rent lockers or 3rd party warehouses that hold possible contraband/illicitly appropriated/counterfeited materiel in such quantities that it cannot be moved without extraordinary expense?
I said this: Either: 1) They are not asking for their data, or 2) They had copies, or 3) It was pirated
So going through your article:
Reader Mark Ellul tells us "I used my account for online storage and backups" it was backup, so he's a 2).
"daveIT" in the Ars forums said he paid for the premium service for increased speed, and used it to collaborate with a friend in Alaska on music tracks. He's a 2 or a 3.
"Another reader tells us in the forums that "I'm an Android phone enthusiast, and Megaupload was one of the best ways to distribute custom ROMs and other Android mods." He's a 2) or a 3).
"Massimiliano Fanciulli tells Ars "I've used Megaupload for distributing betas of my app Sleepy " He *was* a 2) now a nothing.
"Professional musician Suzanne Barbieri "e-mailed us to note that she used Megaupload to store and share music in part because most of her projects "are too large for something like YouSendIt.", another 2).
"One reader admits to having used Megaupload "for both legal and iffy purposes,", he's a 3).
"Vancouver resident Geoff Luk says he volunteered to take photos and videos at the 2010 Winter Olympics and used Megaupload to store files that were 4GB in size.....Luk says he has everything backed up locally". Another 2).
So where's the 1) s?
It's fund to make straw men and break them down, but really access to this data isn't a problem, you just file and the FBI can get it for you.
I think this is actually a good thing, better find out now than later. Together with the recent outages at the Amazon and MS clouds, this shows that the cloud is really a chancy thing to depend on.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Your claim is fucking ridiculous. There are 25 PB of data. It's nearly impossible for there not to be significant amounts of legitimate data on there.
Moreover, unless you are using MAFIAA math to calculate "damages", it is absolutely certain that shutting down the site has caused far more damage to legitimate users. It is outrageous that the US government is being used as a tool for private industry at the people's expense, and without any consideration for collateral damage.
Though, the US government is increasingly engaged in morally outrageous acts these days, so it isn't that surprising.
If I did legitimate banking business with an offshore bank I would still expect my funds to dry up and disappear one day because it's a fucking illegal bank. Yes, there is non-infringing use, but these sites exist on the back of illegal uploads. If it can be shown that they make a significant percentage of their income on obviously illegal transfers then it's hard to see the logic (legally, that is) of permitting them to continue to do business. And it's also hard to see the logic of expecting your files to continue to be available when you're storing them with someone known for their access to files to which people aren't supposed to have access.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They are going to be told that they must keep the servers - just in case it is needed in some court trial in 2-3 years time, and no they can't claim from law_enforcement/courts/... they must pay for it themselves - tough.
If they had just wiped the machines because their customer had not paid their bills they would have been given a slap on the wrist, now if they do they will be in breach of a court order.
"you are assuming that using the service for illegal purposes means you aren't using it for legal purposes"
Change the "legal and iffy" guy to be a 2 or a 3, but he's still not a 1). The reason I doubt his story is because he made a vague anon claim, but you are free to believe it, but he's still not a 1).
"it's batshit insane to claim that out of the 25 PB of data, none of it was both legal and the only extant copy accessible to the uploader."
If I upload a file, the action of uploading *copies* the file. So it's not batshit insane, its inherent that a copy is made in the upload. This is backed up by the lack of requests from people to get their one and only copy of data back from Megaupload's server.
Seriously do you think anyone would upload the one and only copy of some important data to a company that may well have been bankrupt the next day anyway, or had a server crash, or any number of things? You'd be batshit nuts to do that. What if the copy you uploaded was corrupt on the server?
I think its a bargaining ploy with Carpathia Hosting.
They could also just not pay and they aren't the ones wiping it then, if I understood the original article correctly. If they stop paying the hosting fees, the data will no longer be available.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Would u like ur copy of Breaking.Wind.2011.bdrip.x264.-DIMENSION.mkv and TBBT.S04E04.Hot.Troll.Derivation.HDrip.xvid.-LOL.avi back?
The hosting company has done nothing wrong. They shouldn't be punished to keep all that data going. If the government wants to punish Megaupload, that's fine, but pay the hosting fees, so you don't end up bankrupting an innocent party while you take months if not years to sort this out.
"It's okay I jacked his car, he's got another one"
No that's not the same. In you scenario, he has two cars, Car A, Car B, I took Car A, he went from 2 cars to 1 car. In your scenario he lost the cost of one car.
In the actual thing that happened, he has N copies of the same file and the cost of making N+1 copies is zero. So the difference between N and N+1 is zero. He has lost nothing.
"hands people who are misusing the law to prop up a failing business model"
You should really read the indictment:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment
Back in the day on IRC, we had a mythical unit of storage called a "pedobyte". It was defined (to vary over time) as the minimum quantity of data such that the probability of containing a certain type of illegal data reached 100%, and was used to ridicule channel members with overly large collections.
They could also just not pay and they aren't the ones wiping it then, if I understood the original article correctly. If they stop paying the hosting fees, the data will no longer be available.
After RTFA, I am just more confused. Carpathia Hosting is the hosting company, so who are they paying "hosting fees" to? My best guess is they were talking about opportunity costs, they can't sell hosting to paying customers while their capacity is held by the nonpaying Megaupload.
Ironically, the DOJ itself uses MegaUpload.
Palm trees and 8
More importantly, the FBI wants the data so they can go on the biggest digital fishing expedition ever. I expect they'll go after anyone whose account has versions of files protected by any of the major antipiracy "agencies".
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Not only that, Megaupload links pop up in all sorts of places. For example, I was looking at Linux drivers for various USB TV tuners, and it turns out that one of the ones I was looking at had a vendor-supplied driver for Linux that was helpfully linked on the LinuxTV wiki and apparently only available from Megaupload.
Why should the landlord have to pay the costs of holding stuff waiting for a court case to work though the courts?
Fuck this planet. Everyone mass suicide.
couldn't they do things the american way. start a new company. have that company buy that part of the current business. that company goes bankrupt in a month. stuff is wiped. old company buys assets back.
Not a single Megaupload user has come forward and claimed the data in their account is their data.
Quite a few artists, not affiliated with labels, used Megaupload to distribute their albums. It became the new mixtape.
Since they were uploaded the artists, and the artists owned copyright, it definitely was their data.
I've seen discussions of whether this was part (just part, not all) of the motivation for the Megaupload shutdown. Record labels didn't want to lose their control over distribution. This control was one way how they forced musicians to sign bad contracts - there was no other way to get their albums out.
Oh come off it! For this story to fly, it would have to be:
Now I know that backups in the "cloud" are pretty expensive if you want to store more than a few gigabytes, but there's a reason for that, and if you trusted Megaupload to keep your files safe you deserve what you got. Every legit cloud storage facility will charge you something like $100 per terabyte per month, and if you're paying less than that, your data is not safe.
"Carpathia says it is paying $US9000 ($NZ11,128) a day to host the data"
It seems to me they shouldn't be hosting the data at this time, they should just be sitting on the backup tapes. So we're talking about the one-time cost of tapes to hold this data, plus some labor to make and label the tapes. Which is something they should be doing anyway. Or is Carpathia saying "We don't do backups" ? That makes no sense. "Hosting" means running machines for someone else, including administering them. That should include backups, unless Carpathia wants a whole bunch of non-employees running around their floor doing their own backups.
They get brought to court for offering a free service... and now that they are being slapped with this lawsuit...it is easy to see why they would want to close, as well as also deny any further attempts by the courts to ask them for details about people's files. If i was them, I would not have been so lenient, I would have said, for all free stuff, you have a 2 weeks to download, until it gets purged, and for the paying customers, i would have made a tool that allows them access directly to the files on the servers, and tell them they have 3 months to recover their files..then that is it...
That is just my 2 cents
That's a nice way of putting it. The Feds should have to impound the data. If they can't come up with the storage space, then maybe they could rent some. Maybe they could get it from Carpathia.
You're screwed then. If they were in NZ too if I was them I'd have just deleted it. Oh sorry a customer wasn't paying so as per our contract after 60 days their data is deleted. Oh, they were MegaUpload and you were interested in that day .. sorry. Too bad we aren't in the US. But alas that isn't the case they are a US based company and hence, screwed.
If the data being held can not be proved to be infringing prior to any charges being laid, then the **AA cartel is liable for damages to the actual owners of the data, ie the Megaupload users, for their not being able to access their own data. If the *AA want to pursue this and meanwhile hold all the data to ransom, then they better fuckin' pony up.
If this mess is being headed up by Federal prosecutors then it's for the State to pay for storage.
OK, let's get really pedantic on this: let's have the client accounts and logs of Megaupload and have someone go through the fuckin' lot, put all the infringing stuff in one box and have a lot of John Doe cases and give the rest of the data back to MU with a big fat fuckin' sorry and a reacharound for the legitimate client base, because those people are getting royally FUCKED.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I dunno about carpathia in particular but afaict most hosting providers don't own their own datacenters. So unless they remove the servers and move them to storage (not sure if they would be allowed to do this or not) they will still be paying to rent the datacenter space those servers take up. They may well also be leasing the servers and/or have bought them on credit as well.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register