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US Gov't Wants Megaupload Users To Pay For Their Data
angry tapir writes "U.S. federal prosecutors are fine with Megaupload users recovering their data — as long as they pay for it. The government's position was explained in a court filing on Friday concerning one of the many interesting side issues that has emerged from the shutdown of Megaupload, formerly one of the most highly trafficked file-sharing sites. Prosecutors were responding to a motion filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in late March on behalf of Kyle Goodwin, an Ohio-based sports reporter who used Megaupload legitimately for storing videos. The government argues that it only copied part of the Megaupload data and the physical servers were never seized. Megaupload's 1,103 servers — which hold upwards of 28 petabytes of data — are still held by Carpathia Hosting. Goodwin's options, prosecutors said, are either pay — or sue — Carpathia, or sue Megaupload."
...what idiot did upload their stuff to MegaUpload and did not keep an offline backup/original?
I mean, I might be heavily influenced, given that I'm...uuhhh...obsessed with keeping *all* data (executing rm hurts...) and keeping it safe and sound...
2. Tell people to pay if they want to see the data ever again
3. Profit!
All this, of course, is contingent of the hostage taker having access to the data storage. Solution is simple: don't store your data in a country with such practices, or with a company with ties to said country. The Internet should finally recognize the US as damaged area and route around it.
the 99% can take a hike.
Get your rights trampled while they pursue someone or something, well too bad. Its called collateral damage and the little people simply have no say.
As the saying goes, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have"
It also goes without saying a government big enough to give you everything want could care less what you want or what it takes from you.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So if they just reopened megaupload with all the old data still on it the feds would just let that happen right?
Because if so, then yes... megaupload should just do that. But that seems more then unlikely. This is another game the feds like to play. They put down whatever you want, look you in the eye, and say "go ahead - take it!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khyzj5toqwA
I hate the federal government sometimes. This sort of dickish behavior should be reserved for pissing off dictators or various powers that deserve a good scare. But against the cyberlockers?...
Meh... we need some sort of digital Switzerland. Possibly that's just going to have to be the P2P world... no way around it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
According to the MPAA, U.S. government, etc. these digital files are the same as physical property, and under the Fifth Amendment "No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Note the wording - it doesn't state that the government must actually have seized the property in question (which the government argues they did not do) - it must merely have caused a person to be deprived of their property. By their own logic, through the actions of the government, Mr. Goodwin has been deprived of his property, and without his right to a jury trial.
But the government argues that they aren't liable because they only copied certain servers, and a forensic expert could retrieve the original files with access to the servers and hard disks. This is like arguing that the government can seize your car from the garage and dismantle it into thousands of parts, but that they haven't deprived you of your property, because you are free to hire a mechanic (at great cost) to put it all back together again.
On the other hand, suppose you leave some property in the safe of your lawyer, who is subsequently arrested for committing some serious crime. You have now been deprived of your property, but it still exists in the safe. In this case, the government would not have a liability to release a criminal in order to let him open his safe and retrieve your belongings. I think that the government might win this one - if they are willing to let Mr. Goodwin have access to the servers, which they say they are. The Fifth Amendment does not require that the government ensure that you have access to your property that you have left in the care of another person, it only requires them to not be the ones depriving you of it.
The other big issue from the article is that the U.S. government plans to extradite Kim Dotcom and the employees of Megaupload (including web developers etc.) so that they can be charged with criminal copyright infringement in the U.S. Can you imagine what the outcry would be like if any other nation tried to extradite Americans working for a U.S. based file hosting company? What if British prosecutors decide to extradite the developers of {Dropbox,Google Drive,etc.} because some users were sharing episodes of Doctor Who? Most people support extraditions for serious offences like murder, but when it starts to be used for frivolous things like copyright infringement, that support is going to disappear.
This may be pointing out the obvious, but so what if someone does pay, and does legitimately retrieve their data. What's to stop the Government from prosecuting them next? After all, they get the "Criminal" with the evidence, and they had to pay to get it, (weakly) proving its their data.
If its _your_ data, there is nothing the government could prosecute you for. If its _your_ illegal copies of copyrighted material, then I suggest it's a stupid idea to try and download any of that under the eyes of the government.
So the US steals legitimate users data, and now holding these people to ransom for money to get their data back. Sounds like a mafia gangster mob scheme, or is that what the American government has become, because that's what it looks like to non-US citizens. Land of the free!!!
Take Nobody's Word For It.
The US is a Republic and not a Democracy.
Indeed, the gym tells you they are not responsible for my stuff. The person who steals my stuff from my locker however, is.
If my stuff is in a locker at the gym and a foreign government decides to open all the lockers and takes the content, I will not sue the gym: I will sue that government.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
For the most part for most people your data is safer in the cloud... Because you have a professional team who's job is to make sure the data is secure and working. Vs. Average Joe who has a USB Drive that they backup on, then put in the closet, Or keep running in a small closet overheating every summer.
Not to many of us have RAID storage, run nightly off site backups....
So yes your data is safer in the cloud... If your data is really that important, you should skill have an other way to get your data. Even if it is just because your Internet connection died.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.