This whole Megaupload case leaves a bad taste in my mouth. On the one hand, do I think Megaupload's founders were happy to turn a blind eye to piracy? Probably

This whole Megaupload case leaves a bad taste in my mouth. On the one hand, do I think Megaupload's founders were happy to turn a blind eye to piracy? Probably. They may have even encouraged it. Given the current (stupid) laws there is certainly a case to be made by the government. Still, the case is far from clearcut [1]. That being said, the remedy sought by and received by the government is disproportionate to the alleged offense. One problem is that the DoJ injunction to both shutdown the service and maintain the data is costing Megaupload and/or the ISP $9000/day to keep 25PB of data around [2]. How much of that data was infringing exactly? This is the part that leaves a bad taste in my mouth: the DoJ's remedy is essentially punitive to the parties involved (for what is still an alleged infringement) to the point that they simply want to bankrupt alleged offenders. Whatever happened to due process? All of this leads me to two conclusions: 1. The Obama administration's track record on intellectual property is horrendous, from staffing the DoJ with RIAA/MPAA stooges [3] to secretly negotiating international treaties that treat copyright infringement with similar severity as counterfeiting or terrorism [4] (the original ACTA; not the one signed this year). This I think is so bad I think the administration needs to go (not that I think the alternative is much better); and 2. The US government is reinforcing the view that if you want to store data in the cloud and you want it to remain there, store it outside of the US. [1]: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/00373617487/megaupload-details-raise-significant-concerns-about-what-doj-considers-evidence-criminal-behavior.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/00373617487/megaup... [2]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/isp-storing-25-petabytes-of-megaupload-data-costs-us-9000-a-day/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/isp-storing-25-pe... [3]: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/obamas_latest_pick_for_doj_is_riaa_lawyer.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/obamas_latest_pick_for_... [4]: http://boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html http://boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html