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Lost MegaUpload data sitting in a Virginia warehouse

By | Published on Monday 7 April 2014

MegaUpload

Many of the servers that previously hosted MegaUpload are currently gathering dust stacked up in a shed in Virginia, according to Torrentfreak, which has been checking in on the status of files once stored on the now defunct file-storage platform.

As much previously reported, when US authorities shut down the often controversial MegaUpload without warning in early 2012, in a bid to close an operation that allegedly enabled and profited from rampant copyright infringement, any users who stored legitimate files on the platform also lost access to their content.

Various efforts have been made to help said users regain access to their files – with one affected video maker leading the campaign with assistance from the Electronic Frontier Foundation – but no agreement has ever been reached as how that might happen. Legal reps for MegaUpload and its founder Kim Dotcom suggested that they buy the servers off the company which actually owned them, Carpathia, and work out a way of reconnecting former users with their files.

But the US Department Of Justice and legal reps for the US movie studios objected to that proposal. The former has generally been unsympathetic to those who lost their files as a result of the MegaUpload shutdown, simply pointing out that the file-storage company’s terms and conditions instructed users to keep local back-ups of their files. The judge who heard the EFF-led legal case for those former users who had lost files with no local back-up was much more understanding, though has so far only ordered that all parties work together to find a solution.

But no solution has been forthcoming and, according to Torrentfreak, organising the reconnection of old users with old files will now be even harder, because it’s thought the old MegaUpload servers are no longer in racks connected to the net, and are instead gathering dust in a storage facility rented by Carpathia. Although, unlike the European server firm used by Dotcom et al, the US company is yet to actually delete the old MegaUpload files and repurpose its hardware.

Torrentfreak says that it is very hard to get any comment from Carpathia or any other stakeholders in this story regards the status of the lost MegaUpload files, though Dotcom’s legal rep Ira Rothken is always on hand with an update, albeit limited to what information he himself has been provided by the US government and the courts.

Rothken told Torrentfreak last week: “In separate written requests in the past year both Carpathia and MegaUpload have asked Magistrate Judge Anderson – who was appointed by Judge O’Grady to mediate the cloud storage server data issue – to preside over follow-up negotiations on data preservation and consumer access. The US DOJ has shown little interest in such negotiations and the judge has not been inclined to set any additional meetings”.



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