MPAA Wants MegaUpload Data Saved for Future Lawsuits
But it doesn't want to sue users.
It's been two months since the United States Department of Justice seized and shut down file-hosting site Megaupload.com. However, those using the site to store personal files are still unable to access their data, and there's talk that they may never get it back. MegaUpload is trying hard to avoid that situation but in the mean time, the case against MegaUpload continues.
The latest news is word that the MPAA actually wants to keep some of the data stored on MegaUpload's servers. According to Wired, a newly filed court document reveals that the MPAA is requesting that MegaUpload host Carpathia retain the 25 Petabytes of MegaUpload data it has on its servers. This includes account information for MegaUpload's 66 million users. The MPAA says it wants the information because it might decide it wants to sue the file-sharing site and others for copyright infringement. However, the Motion Picture Association of America says it doesn't intend to use the info to sue individual users.
MegaUpload also wants the data retained, but for different reasons. It wants to use the data as part of its defense and is apparently asking the government to free up some of its assets so it can pay Carpathia to hold on to the data for the time being. Additionally, the file-sharing site wants to give users access to files they have stored on MegaUpload's servers.
As for the host? Carpathia is currently spending almost $9,000 a day to keep the data and has petitioned the the courts to relieve it of this burden. Whatever happens, it's possible that if the data is preserved for further lawsuits, people will not be able to access their accounts to retrieve their files due to the fact that the data is part of legal proceedings. A hearing on this issue is expected next month, so we'll know more about the fate of user data at that point.

They can't claim that mega upload is denying artists ect their rights and at the same time denying mega upload users access to their by right personal data. Well maybe they can, after all "justice" seems to be for sale nowadays - Its all a matter of price! Scumbags!
Yeah. Good one. It's mostly just personal notes and writing, spreadsheets, and baby pictures.
From Google, 500TB would cost you $44662 per month just for storage [no access] and MegaUpload was using 50x as much.
For that first 500TB, you are paying an average of $89 per TB per month; for 25 PB to come out to $9000 per day, they had to give you the other 98% of the storage at just $9 per TB...
I smell a dirty rat with that comment.
Others eh? Sounds like they want to invade personal files to look for copyright infringement.
That might be somewhat inconvenient... how about a million 25GB bluRay discs?
Let's see, at about $200 each that's $1.2 Million.
Financed at 6% that would cost you about $200/day.
Much cheaper than paying $9,000/day to host the files.
I have a feeling the 9k/day are not realistic and more a PR stunt.
Data centers don't use desktop SATA drives, they use SAS drives, which are smaller in size and much more expensive. They will also have those drives in RAID arrays, which means even more drive. Then you need enclosures, RAID CARD and systems to handle all those drives and the costs keep going up.
A quick newegg search put 1 TB SAS drive at ~$500, so taking your 6000 number for 4TB drive, multiple it by 4, then by $500, the drive will cost $12 million, and that isn't factoring in extra for RAID.
TLDR: $9K/Day cost are probably correct
With 6% interest and figuring 36 monthly payments and $200 per drive, I get a cost of $1200 per day.
Now those "4TB" drives probably have an actual formatted capacity of 3.6TB, so you'll actually need more. I come up with 7037 drives. At $200 each, now your payments work out to $1408 per day.
The company that provides the service now, presumably has redundancy-- so you're probably looking at double that. Now were up to $2815 per day.
If the average drive lasts 8 years, you'd have an average of 5 drives failing every day; that is another $1000 per day [assuming the same volume pricing].
Those drives just aren't stacked up on the floor [if they were, just bare drives piled up on a pallet, it'd be over 11' tall], they are presumably in servers, that you have to pay for. And those are in racks. And those servers use a lot of electricity and require a lot of outside cooling and a building to keep them in and employees to monitor and replace drives, insurance, etc.
those with information that is not illegally stored on the site need to bring a class action lawsuit against the government of the united states ASAP and file an injunction into the enforcement of the take down order for all it's violations of the constitution of the united states and the laws violating that to be directly under the injunction while they are reviewed for being unconstitutional.
the MPAA should also be filed against in a civil suit by user(s) with legal data and assessed a fine of 10 dollars per day or more (if company or scientific data is stored on there) per user. the MPAA should also be required to show proof that all 66+ million users were violating it's copy right claims in order to have any authority in having law enforcement carry out it's duty and a federal suit seeking jail time for every member in the MPAA and it's staff face 10 years per user that was violated in this instance who can not be proven to have done copyright infringement.
Yours truly,
Mr. Kissa Mya assus