The RIAA likes to say that stealing an MP3 is like stealing a CD from a store. So, what happens when the FBI deletes your perfectly legal files on MegaUpload? Are they then stealing your property?
It's the perfect illustration of how the perception of assets changes once they go digital, and how this very sharp knife can cut both ways. Because there's now the potential of a very unfortunate casualty of the MegaUpload meltdown: your completely non-infringing folder of upload files - ie, your personal belongings. And at this point, we're not really sure what's been deleted, and what's still sitting on some abandoned server somewhere.
Which is why the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Carpathia Hosting are joining to forces to launch MegaRetrieval.com, a site for those hoping to recover some lost goods. "The EFF is troubled that so many lawful users of MegaUpload.com had their property taken from them without warning and that the government has taken no steps to help them," said EFF lawyer Julie Samuels. "We think it's important that these users have their voices heard as this process moves forward."
This was a gigantic pile of data. MegaUpload was one of the largest locker services on the planet, and probably home to millions of original, non-copyrighted docs, music files, in-collaboration studio cuts, and uploaded photos. Sucks to lose that stuff, but there's a far bigger philosophical issue of due process here, one that touches on whether US Government enforcement agencies should exercise this level of attack while essentially trashing the remainder.
At this point, the site is a joint effort with Carpathia Hosting, which is now sitting on a giant, unpaid hosting account. Right now, the EFF is asking people to start the process by emailing megauploadmissing@eff.org - with only the hope of getting your stuff back.
Comments Closed
James Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Good grief, if the only single copy of your data was on MegaUpload, well, that's just plain stupid. Whatever happened to the old axiom that digital data doesn't exist unless it's in more than three places?
Also, "The EFF - Defending your rights in the digital world" - LMAO. Defending my rights? Really? My rights as an artist as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example? Ever thought of defending that once in a while?
visitor Tuesday, January 31, 2012
lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.
zero sympathy.
NathanJE Tuesday, January 31, 2012
That's not the point. So if you live on a crack block, then your house gets raided and stuff stolen and that's okay?
Same thing.
Visitor2 Tuesday, January 31, 2012
It's not the same thing but I do agree with you. As much as we'd like to think that everyone understood that MegaUpload's growth was as a result of their illegal business its just not the case. Lets not make the mistake of thinking everyones world revolves around the content industry, there are people completely ignorant to the bigger picture issue with a service like this. The problem with MegaUpload is not the cloud based file hosting, its the file SHARING thats the issue.
It's important for the content industry to take care of people legally using services, we need to make friends not enemies even in our battle. It's like bombing afghanistan to kill terrorists, if you kill innocent people along the way they'll start to hate you (even if they don't agree with the terrorists).
visitor Tuesday, January 31, 2012
yes officer, i know i was storing my stuff in this lock-up that was chock full of stolen goods but my stuff wasn't stolen goods, they were just giving me a really good deal on the rent, and now you've raided the lock-up and taken everyone's stuff including mine.
Fuck you officer, imma sue you!
jw Tuesday, January 31, 2012
I would be willing to bet that every locker service (yousendit, rapidshare, apple's icloud, amazon's locker service, etc) has a proportionate amount of illegitimate data stored on it, but also a proportionate amount of legitimate data. What made MegaUpload especially dubious is that they implemented programs (paying uploaders, namely) that would have required them to determine the integrity of the files being stored/shared. But I would assume they became a successful at hosting/serving illegitimate data by first doing a good job hosting/serving legitimate data.
The people who were storing legitimate data on MegaUpload shouldn't be punished any more than someone storing legitimate data on Apple or Amazon's service, at least not on the basis of "rent on a 'crack block'" or a "lock-up that was chock full of stolen goods." That's just what the internet is, & for it to be any other way you would have to give up any & all rights to privacy.
streetsmart Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Guess when the law takes your stuff for committing an illegal act, you are not getting it back.
Bob Hart Tuesday, January 31, 2012
i hope they AT LEAST give us 24 hours access...i'm mad cause i had alot of stuff of on MU that i didn't keep a 2nd backup off (-)smacks head into wall(-)
p.s. if anyone is looking for a similar free host:
http://www.peeje.com/upload
imo it's better than megaupload since peeje gives u DIRECT-download links
FG Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Threat Level's David Kravets reported Jan. 31 that "a scheduled purging of Megaupload’s data was tentatively shelved Tuesday to give its millions of account holders an opportunity to attempt to retrieve their content from the file-sharing service." The hosting companies possessing Megaupload customer's data could begin purging data as soon as Feb. 2, as the Justice Department has frozen the Megaupload administrators' assets so they can't pay their hosting bills. However, it remains unclear how much time users actually have to safely remove their data from the service before the cloud evaporates.
If David Kravits has it right, you still have a day or so to download your legal data. Does he have it right?
Visitor Wednesday, February 01, 2012
So because I used a locker service to send files back and forth to clients that I did mastering work for everything I've worked on should be deleted?
(I didn't used megaupload)
nit picker Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Yves Villeneuve Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Visitor Wednesday, February 01, 2012
ahh, remember when i brought up this issue with regard to the cloud? I mother boinking told you.
So funny! Wednesday, February 01, 2012
No one bothered to read the MegaUpload terms of use?
Recovering Legitimate Megaupload Files? Good Luck With That
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