Megaupload Users Gain Reprieve, EFF Working to Retrieve Data

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is working on a way to separate legitimate user data from illegal content that had been stored on Megaupload servers so that users can reclaim their personal files.

Carpathia Hosting, one of the companies Megaupload had contracted with to provide hosting services, created MegaRetrieval.com to help users work with the EFF “to investigate their options for retrieving their legitimate, non-infringing files,” the company said in a statement.

Carpathia insisted that it “does not have, and has never had, access to the content on Megaupload’s servers,” and it still wants to “assist lawful users of the Megaupload service.”

Although originally reported that the data would be deleted as early as Feb. 2, it now appears that the data would be maintained for at least two more weeks, according to Ira Rothken, an attorney representing Megaupload in the legal case.

“Carpathia Hosting has no immediate plans to reprovision some or all of the Megaupload servers. This means that there is no imminent data loss for Megaupload customers. If this situation changes, Carpathia will post a notice at least seven days in advance of reprovisioning any Megaupload servers at http://www.Carpathia.com and MegaRetrieval.com,” Brian Winter, chief marketing officer at Carpathia, said in a statement.

The data reprieve means that users who used the service to store personal files and photos may be able to regain access to their data. The servers have been offline since the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down Megaupload and arrested seven executives on charges of racketeering, money laundering and copyright violations.