The user uploaded a copy, which by local standards, isn’t the original. By local definition it’s “only a copy” and thus has no true value or impact of the value of the original. It only gains some value when the original is lost or destroyed.

The mere act of uploading a copy of something to Mega does not suddenly make the original disappear, nor does it suddenly become unique property. It is only a copy, and thus, by local standards, without value or consequence.

Actually, you cannot store your personal “copy” on the file locker, you can only store a copy of your copy. The loss of your “original” comes only because you choose to delete it or you lose it in some other manner. The file in the file locker is “only a copy” and not something of any true value, nor something of specific ownership. See, to upload you didn’t send you original copy (say the DVD the movie came on), rather you ripped the disc and sent a copy, not the original. You cannot even transmit the digital original without retaining the original copy.

Remember, in every legal sense, making a photocopy of a book doesn’t mean you suddenly own the book. Your only legal copy is the real one, everything else is a duplicata with no value.

Again, by local standards making a copy is no big deal. So those claiming rights to their “copy” of something are asking for something of no value and no easily determined ownership.

In this case, the EFF has little chance of recourse, as it seems that Mega’s failure to maintain proper off site backups is the reason none of this data can be accessed. If Mega had taken care of the customer data and secured an offsite backup, there would be no issue, would there?

And the MPAA&RIIA victims???? Are they fucking joking if anything people should sue them and the government as its clear what is going on. MPAA pulled strings up top to get megaupload shut down and kim in jail with no money and huge legal issues.

Things did not pan out that way with all the illegal spying and corruption the US government got found with their pants down and now need MPAA to find something to pin on him so they can take his money and his freedom.

I also believe that people should have the non-commercial right to do anything they want with media in their own home.

The law is already supportive of this ideal up to a point such as England’s Fair Dealing law allows me one personal copy of media taken from any source. As long as I keep only one copy then those who claim copyright on it have no ability to stop me under the law. So what is under my control my technically my property.

Equally I can take my personal copy and store it lawfully on a file locker. As long as that remains my only copy then neither the MAFIAA nor law enforcement can deny me access to what is lawfully mine.

Yes the DoJ/FBI have made the claim that they only have the lawful right to return the HDD when data is not actual property but most of us don’t believe them.

I had a few files uploaded to MU to share with friends, which I kept on my system’s drives at the time, that have since been lost due to either having to rebuild the partition/s said data was on without being able to fully back up the data prior, or natural data entropy as the drives are written and re-written to many times over whilst sorting out the data on said drives. Yes, even platter-based hard disk drives have a lifespan depending on how heavily they are used and abused by reading and writing data, it’s just SSD’s have it worse considering how young they are as a technology for storage media (even Blu-Ray’s can trace their heritage back to LaserDisc and prior).
And that’s not counting how much data I’ve ‘lost’ over the years having to reformat drives for other use after backing up the data I wanted from them – only to find out the files are corrupted in some manner, either due to hardware failures from the drive being backed up or due to software glitches during the backup (Microsoft Windows, I’m looking at you!).

Talk to any computer repairman (eg: Geek Squad) and you’ll often hear stories of users sending in systems for “repairs” and saying they want a fresh rebuild, then later complain how they can’t access a particular file which was lost during the rebuild – even when they were warned to back up their personal documents so they wouldn’t be deleted by the rebuild.

(did you recorded that NSA?)

End of NSA testing.

here’s your own logic back: It’s not property, it’s only a copy of the property. The user didn’t have to delete their own copy in order to upload, so there is (a) nothing lost until the user deletes or removes their own copy, and thus, (b) the copy on mega’s server isn’t the actual property.

It’s your own logic here, if piracy doesn’t deprive a rights holder of anything, then shutting down mega and not allowing access to copies causes no real harm. Your own logic, if they didn’t want to “lose” it, they shouldn’t have shared it with mega.