MPAA thinks Megaupload would restart if it reclaimed servers
updated 07:55 pm EDT, Mon April 2, 2012
Fear operation would start up again off-shore
The movie industry watchdog MPAA has asked the court that is presiding over the Megaupload case to prevent the file locker site from buying the servers, and the data stored on them, from the hosting site where the equipment and data currently reside. The motion comes after Virginia-based Carpathia, which owns the servers, made an emergency motion to the court, complaining that it's incurring costs of $9,000 daily in order to maintain the data. The stored information takes up 25 petabytes of space.
Carpathia has asked that it be allowed to sell the servers and their content back to Megaupload. The MPAA has objected, claiming that theoretically, the company or its founders, could move them offshore, beyond US jurisdiction and theoretically bring back the complicit support of pirated content.
The MPAA has claimed sympathy for Megaupload subscribers who may have legitimately used the service but now can't access it. The organization defended the shutdown, however, by arguing that the site's agreement left these users with no guarantee of continued access. The MPAA would find it acceptable if the servers were transferred from Carpathia to the custody of the US government, and if users were able to recover legitimate, non-copyrighted information.
In January, Megaupload was shut down by authorities and several of its employees were arrested. Although distributed worldwide, they were charged with violating American piracy laws. It's alleged that their activities contributed to $500 million in lost revenues for the movie and music industries, although this is based on the assumption that every pirated download is a lost sale. [via The Hollywood Reporter]
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Joined: Apr 2011
Well, the MPAA also thinks -
consumers would buy all the movies being downloaded...