In early April, we reported on the case of Kyle Goodwin, who used the MegaUpload file sharing site to store videos made legally by him for his business, OhioSportsNet. All those files have now been kept from him in the wake of the shut down of those servers in January by the US government. Goodwin, with the backing of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, asked the courts in April to force the government to free up the files he has stored on MegaUpload"s servers.
Well, it looks like the courts, and the US government, have done little on this issue. So the EFF announced today that it has filed yet another legal brief in US federal court, asking them to order the government to free up Goodwin"s files from those servers.
In a statement, the EFF said:
And it’s not just about Kyle’s property: it’s about the property of many other legal Megaupload users, too. We’ve asked the court to implement a procedure to make all of those consumers whole again by granting them access to what is legally theirs. Especially given that the use of cloud computing services is already widespread and poised to grow exponentially in the next few years, we believe the court should ensure that such innocent users do not become regular collateral damage.
Meanwhile, the court actions against MegaUpload"s founder Kim Dotcom continued this week. It turns out the FBI illegally removed Dotcoms data and hardware out of New Zealand and shipped it back to the US, without notifying the courts.