GLOBAL, FEBRUARY 1, 2012: United States prosecutors have blocked access to Megaupload and charged seven men, including founder Kim Dotcom, of facilitating illegal downloading of movies, TV series, music, e-books, and other content. Carpathia Hosting Inc. and Cogent Communications Group Inc., Megaupload’s outsourced file hosts, could commence the file deletion as early as Thursday, February 2.
“It is our understanding that the hosting companies may begin deleting the contents of the servers beginning as early as February 2, 2012,” said U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride in a letter filed Friday last week in Eastern District of Virginia, where file servers Carpathia and Cogent are based.
While Megaupload has been known to host and share files that may be copyrighted, a significant number of subscribers also use the website for cloud storage. Many are hopeful that the data could still be recovered. Megaupload’s lawyer Ira Rothken, in particular, said that these contents are important for the defense.
Consequently, Carpathia and Cogent have agreed to wait while a proposed solution is in the works. Carpathia, in particular, said that it’s working with Electronic Frontier Foundation to help users get get their data back through another website: megaretrieval.com.
Close to 50 million users of Megaupload have been unable to access their data, including personal photos and documents, as early as January, which brought about a spike in site traffic in rival “cyberlockers” Rapidshare, Hotfile, and 4Shared.
Aside from the illegal downloading charges, the indictment also alleges that Megaupload has cost copyright holders an estimated $500 M, while earning around $175 M in the process through advertisements and subscription fees.
