US: Megaupload’s Hosting Company Might be Sued Next

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At a federal court hearing where several parties hoped to get a clear answer on the fate of Megaupload's user data, the US Government's attorney slammed hosting company Carpathia. The US says the hosting provider may be partly responsible for the copyright infringements that occurred through Megaupload and said Carpathia may even become the target of a civil lawsuit.

carpathiaNearly three months after the Megaupload raids and arrests, 1,103 servers hosted at Carpathia are gathering dust.

While the US Government won’t mind if the servers are destroyed, Megaupload, the EFF and even the MPAA all argued that would be a bad idea because they contain critical evidence and irreplaceable user data.

Hosting company Carpathia, on the other hand, said it can’t bear the costs of $9,000 a day indefinitely. So the company called for a meeting where they asked Judge O’Grady to come up with a solution. That hearing was held on Friday and proved to be quite interesting.

While Carpathia hoped the hearing would bring relief, in the event the company was warned that it too might become a target for litigation.

As reported by CNET, Judge O’Grady was sympathetic to the hosting company’s call for help, but the attorney representing the US Government wasn’t. The attorney stated that Carpathia made $35 million from Megaupload and insinuated that the company might not be as neutral as it claims to be.

The lawyer further said that Megaupload’s host may be partly responsible for the copyright infringements that occurred through the cyberlocker, and added that the host itself could become the target of a civil lawsuit.

The attorney didn’t substantiate the alleged wrongdoings of Carpathia and neither did he identify the potential source of a civil suit.

One possible party that could go after the hosting company is the MPAA. The movie industry group previously said they want the data to be preserved for potential civil cases against Megaupload-affiliated entities. However, during the hearing on Friday they were no longer interested in keeping the data intact, so this seems unlikely.

Neither of the parties involved was willing to comment on the claims made by the US attorney, but it’s clear that the US Government thinks Carpathia is not totally innocent.

After hearing the various arguments, Judge O’Grady decided that the parties involved should get back together to find a suitable solution. This was one of the suggestions made by the Megaupload legal team, but with so many different interests at stake it will prove to be a challenging endeavor.

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