Megaupload Wants U.S. Government To Buy And Store Its Servers

These guys want the U.S. government to buy the 1,100 servers that were confiscated from Megaupload? Ummm, say what?

Megaupload's legal team is asking the court to preserve essential evidence hosted on its seized servers. The data is at risk of being destroyed and Kim Dotcom's lawyers argue that the authorities should buy the servers and transfer them to a safe facility where they can be preserved at the Government's cost.

The cost of preserving evidence should not fall on the company where the evidence was located. The cost to do so has been in the millions of dollars.

Seems fair. You break it (due process) you pay for it.

lol, do they really need "evidence"? Will the entire trial really hinge on showing every single file that was stored? I'm sure a single 4.7GB DVD could hold plenty of copy righted material.

westrock2000 said:

lol, do they really need "evidence"? Will the entire trial really hinge on showing every single file that was stored? I'm sure a single 4.7GB DVD could hold plenty of copy righted material.

Click to expand...

This is what the DMCA is supposed to be for. Instead of shutting down YouTube, they simply remove the requested material.

Janic said:

The cost of preserving evidence should not fall on the company where the evidence was located. The cost to do so has been in the millions of dollars.

Click to expand...

I completely agree, though in this case mega-upload specifically isn't paying for the upkeep. 1100+ servers were confiscated and taken to another facility... which was bought out and the new company is asking if it can wipe the data due to cost. Why it is not charging the government for the cost I have no clue.

westrock2000 said:

lol, do they really need "evidence"? Will the entire trial really hinge on showing every single file that was stored? I'm sure a single 4.7GB DVD could hold plenty of copy righted material.

Click to expand...

Probably should read the article... The government HAS copied a small portion of the data. The defense attorney's argument is that the data they copied was cherry picked. They claim the webserver and SQL server has evidence the want to show... basically that mega-uploaded used copyright neutral wording etc etc (since the case is basically that they knew and encouraged sharing of copyrighted work).

The worse part is the judge first has to "rule" on whether to hear the request not to destroy data. Really is that a decision? Hopefully a formality but one that sounds like pre-judgement.

Lets also not forget there is tons of user data still there, some have written the court they still want it back.

It amazes me this is even an issue. IMO if the government thinks it has enough evidence copied already, then give the servers back. This situation is like if your house was searched, they took a bunch of stuff and then kept 3 things and threw everything else away (lets not in get into forfeiture).

This seems pretty reasonable, actually. It's not Megaupload's fault these servers are just sitting there being a money pit, nor is it the fault of the company that purchased them.

If I was the company that hosted those servers my message to the US court (they're not a US-based corporation so they're not even required to do this) and tell them they'll be wiping and repurposing the servers unless they'd like to pay for upkeep.

Frankly, I find it mindboggling that the evidence hasn't already been collected. The amount of time this is taking is unreasonable.

“The Government cannot criminally and civilly indict all the revenues arising out of all the global users of the Megaupload cloud storage site in the largest copyright case in history while at the same time cherry picking a sliver evidence to retain for trial and throwing away the rest to manifestly prevent the mounting of a fair defense,” they add.

Click to expand...

makes sense.

dandirk said:

I completely agree, though in this case mega-upload specifically isn't paying for the upkeep. 1100+ servers were confiscated and taken to another facility... which was bought out and the new company is asking if it can wipe the data due to cost. Why it is not charging the government for the cost I have no clue.

Click to expand...

Confiscated ? Nothing has been confiscated. The servers are property of QTS (buyer of Carpathia), who own the servers, but are not allowed to do anything to them.

It is like if you would be a landlord and government would put a police tape at each and every apartment you own, because one of the tenants might have done something criminal; and wouldn't allow you to rent those apartments until the court proceedings finish with that tenant. At same time you would have to pay for property taxes, insurance and everything else.

Imagine you as hosting company having lots of your servers shut down for 3 years, while you personally are not criminally charged. The govt also does not want to pay for your losses - you have bunch of servers which you cannot use, cannot sell, their value drop over time...