Magaupload's users weren't all pirating copyrighted material. When authorities shut down the site earlier this month, many cried foul as they lost access to their files overnight. Thanks to its generous file size limit and zippy transfer speed, Megaupload had become the file hosting service of choice for many to share and distribute perfectly legal content-- such as custom ROMs for Android, self-recorded music tracks, and large graphics or photographs. But it appears all of these files are going to disappear. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia is hinting that the hosting companies that provided service to Megaupload--namely Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications Group--may begin deleting data as soon as Thursday. Ira Rothken, Megaupload's attorney, said that the company is working with prosecutors to prevent that from happening. Aside from preserving its users' content, Rothken says the data is important for Megaupload to defend itself in court. Carpathia says that it hasn't communicated with the U.S. government on the matter, and didn't confirm or deny its intention to delete Megaupload's data. But the tone of its statement isn't promising.

Carpathia Hosting does not have, and has never had, access to the content on MegaUpload servers and has no mechanism for returning any content residing on such servers to MegaUpload’s customers.  The reference to the February 2, 2012 date in the recently reported Department of Justice letter for the deletion of content is not based on any information provided by Carpathia to the U.S. Government. We would recommend that anyone who believes that they have content on MegaUpload servers contact MegaUpload.

Photo credit: Mrs TeePot