Megaupload’s Data May Be Deleted by This Thursday
All the data provided by the file-sharing website Megaupload could be deleted after just a couple of days, on February 2nd. As part of the copyright infringement lawsuit against the website that begin in January the site’s assets were blocked and they can’t pay to the outside hosting companies they use for storing the content users uploaded. According to some of the documents presented by the court, the erasing of the files of about 50 million users might begin this Thursday and will include all the data – both legal and illegal files.
Megaupload customers’ accounts have been blocked since January 19 when the website was unexpectedly and quickly shut down. The company states that its users upload their own content, such as photos and different personal documents, which are absolutely legitimate files.
Now the site is offline and the company and seven people from the staff (including the founder of Megaupload – Kim Schmitz a.k.a. Kim Dotcom) are charged with making $175 million out of copyright infringement and bringing the copyright holders loss of $500 million. The indicted could go to prison for 20 years – maximum, if found guilty.
Despite all of this, Megaupload’s lawyers stated they were trying to achieve some kind of agreement with the prosecutors to stop the upcoming deletion. Ira Rothken, lawyer of Megaupload said “We’re cautiously optimistic at this point that because the United States, as well as Megaupload, should have a common desire to protect consumers”.
The hacktivist group Anonymous reacted immediately to the government’s actions against Megaupload by taking down the site of Universal Music Group – the biggest record label, the website of U.S. Department of Justice, the websites of the Recording Industry Association of America’s, Motion Picture Association of America, the U.S. Copyright Office and the Utah Chiefs of Police Association. When Megaupload was shut Anonymous posted in Twitter : “The government takes down Megaupload? 15 minutes later Anonymous takes down government & record label sites.”
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