14 DAY TRIAL // The fortunes of those caught in the crossfire between the media industry and MegaUpload are on the rise as a man represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a brief requesting that the user data currently in limbo be returned to its rightful owners.
"The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) represents Kyle Goodwin, who runs a business reporting on high school sporting events in Ohio. Goodwin stored his video footage on Megaupload's servers as a backup to his hard drive," the EFF explained.
Goodwin lost access to all of his files as his hard drive crashed around the time the site was closed. With his only backup in the hands of the government, he was left with no way to recover all of the footage.
He is now asking the judge presiding over the MegaUpload lawsuit to devise a way for him and all the other legitimate users to retrieve their data.
"Mr. Goodwin has suffered a significant loss to his business, through no fault of his own," EFF IP Director Corynne McSherry said in an EFF statement. "Megaupload's innocent users deserve an opportunity to get their important data back before it's destroyed forever."
The MegaUpload data is still being kept by Carpathia hosting, a third-party that was contracted with storing user data. Carpathia has asked the court to be relieved of the burden, which is losing it money every day, and be allowed to delete all of the data.
MegaUpload has also asked for some of its seized funds to be released so it can continue to pay for the data hosted. It believes the data will prove valuable in court as it may show that it wasn't entirely dedicated to copyright infringement, as the media companies have assessed.
Surprisingly perhaps, the MPAA has recently asked the court to hold on to the data as well, indicating that it may be useful in other lawsuits. The MPAA has said that it may sue third-parties that used MegaUpload. Initially, users were fair game, but the MPAA later clarified the matter claiming that it didn't intend to target individual users.