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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."
My data is safe. Its in the cloud!
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
...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...
but would carpathia give data to anyone who paid? doubt that. how would they even know how to get the data. are they even allowed to access the data? doubt that too.
seems like just washing of hands - amazingly fucked up investigation though. next they'll try to argue that they never did any legal action?? (which is actually true, "haha"). it's increasingly evident that the fbi tactic was that they assumed dotcom would settle for some prison time right away(thus not needing evidence or due process).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
So, effectively, they based all of their case on partial data which *THEY SAY* they copied from the servers and don't actually have possession of the physical servers? They do understand that digital evidence is not really evidence, right?
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.
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind" - Dr. Seuss
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.
The Govt siezed the domain, thereby preventing access to users data.
Even if it could be switched to another domain easily enough, it was still forbidden to do so. Are valid users also entitled to sue for loss of earnings due to being unable to access their data or the inability to make it accessible to others?
"Access is not the issue -- if it was, Mr. Goodwin could simply hire a forensic expert to retrieve what he claims is his property and reimburse Carpathia for its associated costs," the response said.
Based on this statement, it sounds like the US Federal Prosecutors already have preserved a copy of all the data they need for their case, and now they don't have a problem with Megaupload/Carpathia taking Megaupload back online to allow users to retrieve their data, and any TOS/data retrieval fee is to do with the customer and Megaupload, not the US Government.
The funny thing about that idea is that the government actually gets to choose whether a suit against it has merit and can go forward. Good luck with that in many cases.
Write failed: Broken pipe
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.
The only fair option is to sue Megaupload. But for their involvement in illegal activity, your legal data would be safe. Everybody who ever uploaded legal content has a good case to get back some of Megaupload's 100M USD, and their data too. Small claims or class action, I wonder...
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.
So you are saying that in the U.S., courts are not independent? I always thought that to be a cornerstone of democratic systems.
And it is. Of course, it shouldn't be the only place where you store your data, but then again, nothing should.
Dilbert RSS feed
As this http://www.techspot.com/news/48924-mpaa-would-allow-megaupload-users-access-to-non-copyrighted-files.html article notes, "the MPAA expressed sympathy towards legitimate users who may have lost access to original content or data that was obtained legally, although they also point out that Megaupload's terms of service offered no guarantee of the safety or accessibility of uploaded data."
The fact is, Megaupload offered NO guarantee any data stored on its servers would be accessible at any given point in the future, if at all. Whether its servers were destroyed by an act of God, or the US government makes no difference -- there was never any contract between Megaupload and its users to safeguard their data, and as a result its users were not deprived of anything tangible when that data was taken offline.
It's kind of like sticking your stuff in a locker at a swimming pool or a gym -- they put up big signs saying they're not responsible for your stuff. Of course, you would never store anything valuable in a locker room, now would you? This sort of 'rejection of liability' flows on -- if the government turns up, takes over the building for some reason or another, and throws you out, they're not responsible for your stuff either. You're just SOL.
A locker in a gym is not the same as a safety deposit box in a bank vault. To argue that they are is just plain silly, and if you tried it in court, I imagine a judge would laugh at you. Your argument would be swiftly defeated by a rebuttal of simple common sense.
So although it's fun to rant about 'suing the gubbermint', such a pointless exercise would never lead anywhere, and the government knows that. By pointing out that you could recover your data through Megaupload's hosting provider, they're really just being 'nice'. They owe you nothing.
If you stop paying the lawn mover (the guy, not the machine), does he blow up the lawn?
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.
You cannot sue the federal government if they do not let you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Tort_Claims_Act
The US is a Republic and not a Democracy.
They retain "Sovereign Immunity". So basically you can not sue the US Government unless they give you permission to do so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity#United_States
So, if MU has all it's data and there will be no case against them (apparently MU is allowed to start their site again), why did the FBI copy the data? This is international data-theft (Using the MPAA's definition of the term theft). Plain and simple. This might even be the largest theft in history :P
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
Sue the Government. Might not work, but there is no reason why they can't be sued.
Yes [ ] - I would like to sue the US Government, endure a lifetime of tax audits, have my life turned upside-down & inside-out by the FBI, lose my job and family, and be laughed out of court by a Federal Judge for seeking reasonable redress for the bad acts of my government.
No [ ] - I was only filling out this form as part of a high school civics assignment.
Lifetime of tax audits? What percentage of MU's users were Americans?
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
We're not interested in your need for anal sex. Try Craigslist.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
You know how you always see the fudged **AA's accounting that says that stealing music/movies cost billions in jobs/lost revenue, well now we can say that sloppily shutting down servers cost people billions in lost jobs/revenue.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
The US is an oligarchy, not a republic.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Merriam-Websters:
republic: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
democracy: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
Oh yes, such vastly different things. The only people i ever hear making that distinction are teabaggers who would prefer us living in a fascist theocracy filled with mental midgets.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Reminds me of this guy from Indonesia that was upset by a guy living in the apartment above him, i think from Thailand... not sure on that though. They were having a cross between a catfight and a shouting match, both running around yelling "I fuck you, I fuck you" to each other. We didn't have the heart to correct their English. Was good entertainment for the evening.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
In any civilized country it sure is. Think about it if a parent is arrested, who takes care of the children? The state.
The entire problem is that police powers and civil liberties are always going to be at odds with each other, they need to be because you can't have an effective police force if they can't violate peoples rights (as in have more powers then ordinary people) and you can't have everyone life in a constant police state either.
Take guns, most police forces have guns with which they are allowed to kill people. The British police does not have gun, so no bobby has ever killed anyone? Illegally? The point is not to restrict the powers the police has but to restrict their indiscriminate use. You should be able to arrest a Jew, but not to arrest all Jews. Fillin your favorite group to avoid Godwin if you like.
Where do you draw the line? That is the constant and never answered question. You certainly won't get an answer from any individual, let alone the one currently experiencing the harshness of the justice system in action. Ideally, the checks and balances (and this includes the average voter reading newspapers for something else then the sport scores and the funnies) will balance it all out.
This seems no longer to be the case. But I am pretty sure the RIAA agrees with you that the balance has veered far to much of where it should be, they just are thinking in a different direction. As a society, we have to make the ones in power answerable. So, new zealanders, vote the current government out.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So let me get this straight.... a person pays for a DVD, makes a copy & uploads it to their Megaupload account. Then Hollywood's government seizes the legally bought property because the person made it available online. Then Hollywood's gov't says the uploader who originally bought the movie, needs to buy it back if they want it. Hmm? Am I missing something? That sounds a lot like....
The Republicans voted for Obama themselves when they put Romney up against him. If they had put up someone more in the middle, Ron Paul, he would've received all the Republican votes and taken large bites out of the other groups. Unfortunately, they don't understand compromise, so they will lose. Then whine. Then apparently lose all their rights to prison-warden government. It's okay though because history is written by the winners, which are ... the lawyers?
Sorry. Low sugar. If only I had my super-sized cola....
or vagina
Option 1. Pay to get you data... If you have illegal data then you have shown financial responsibility in owning Illegal material.
Option 2. Sue... You better be sure all your data is Legit... If not then you may loose your suit and you got expensive lawyer bills.
Ether way the there is proof on the person who put the data there. If it is illegal there are brand new targets.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
And once Megaupload is "making money" off of their services, the U.S. Government has the grounds to charge them with more serious copyright infringement, don't they.
D. Tyler Cade
Always wondered what his real first name was.
Users of Megaupload.com for the most part have paid already for their data.
That's why the site was making money, because people were willing to pay for faster access and to be able to store their files with a larger limit on how large those files could be. This spew from obvious shills is disgusting, pretending that users of Megaupload were somehow freeloaders--many of their users were not. They paid for access.
The money is there, it is the MAFIAA's own fault if they can't figure out a way to get to it by offering a fair price.
HINT: It's called capitalism in an open market...
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
Fudge, the only reason this is a problem in the first place is because the feds swooped in and confiscated all of mega upload's funds and won't even let it pay their hosting bills. They had to fight like hell just to get enough to pay their legal bills.
Which honestly sounds like imposing an unfair burden on carpathia hosting.
Seriously, carpathia hosting is an innocent bystander in all of this that has been forced to squat on its servers while the feds sit on MU's money.
Not to mention seizing MU's funs BEFORE they are convicted in court. They've pretty much been thrown in prison for life before they've even got a guilty verdict against them.
History is written by the victors because the losers aren't around anymore.
It's no different from an armed robber getting richer because he has a gun to force money out of your pockets.
No, he's just citing Sovereign Immunity
The judiciary is part of the government. So yes, the original description was in fact accurate. I'll concede it would have been better for me to have linked to sovereign immunity in the United States as well, though. The process is also not as simple as you've described.
Write failed: Broken pipe
Is Google basing their business model on illegal file sharing?
This was in fact the allegation in Viacom v. YouTube, that at one point YouTube (now a Google company) wasn't fulfilling its obligations as a service provider under OCILLA (17 USC 512).
When you see "could care less", please read it as "could hardly care less". It disappoints me that this sort of pedantry gets modded up so often.
Ever, never - rely on "cloud" computing based on an ethereal internet.
EVER.
~Just as a thing fails if it lacks a kernel, so too it fails if it lacks a skin. ~ Rumi, Discourses
And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him
Bill or George! Anything but Sue! I still hate that name!