Jay Prabhu, the lawyer representing the U.S. Attorney’s office told the court that if the cost of doing business with MegaUpload has gone up, Carpathia’s added expenses shouldn’t be thrust onto taxpayers. Later, Prabhu made several comments about Carpathia that for the first time in the case suggested someone other than MegaUpload’s managers may bear some responsibility.
Prabhu disputed the notion that the hosting service is just an innocent third party left holding the bag. He attacked the company’s claims that managers were caught unaware by the charges leveled against MegaUpload.
Prabhu outlined how Carpathia had received subpoenas regarding MegaUpload’s alleged copyright violations from the government as well those from civil complaints against MegaUpload. He told the judge that MegaUpload helped Carpathia generate $35 million.
The attorney also said he had reason to believe that Carpathia may be a target for civil litigation. He did not accuse Carpathia of violating any criminal laws and did not identify where a civil complaint might have originated.
A spokeswoman for Carpathia issued a statement saying the company is looking forward to working with the other parties to resolve the issue but did not respond to Prabhu’s statements. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office also declined to comment.
Anyone who may try to accuse Carpathia of having some kind of culpability in any copyright-infringing behavior at MegaUpload is likely taking on a tough case. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was tailor-made for third-party service providers like Carpathia. The act’s Safe Harbor provision is designed to shield bandwidth providers and other service providers from liability for the copyright violations committed by users.
Nonetheless, the relationship between MegaUpload and Carpathia was certainly unique.
MegaUpload put Carpathia on the map. The company was largely unheard of 2009. That was when researchers from the University of Michigan and Arbor Networks reported they had discovered something unusual. In July that year, that 0.6 percent of all Internet traffic for the month was delivered by a little known Web hosting service: Carpathia.
That was equivalent to double the amount of bandwidth consumed by Facebook and nearly half of all of Microsoft’s Web properties, including Bing, Forbes noted in a story from November that year.
The researchers traced the massive traffic wave to a deal Carpathia had struck a year earlier to service MegaUpload and the other sites operated by founder Kim DotCom: Megarotica, Megavideo, Megaclick.
Forbes’ reporter Andy Greenberg wrote then that the sites had “become the digital equivalent of the Somalian coastline in the fight against online piracy.”
See also:
Internet Lawyer David Snead Comments On MegaUpload & Carpathia / Leaseweb Revenue Stats. New “Single Digit” Claim Highly Unlikely
http://vrritti.com/2012/03/28/internet-lawyer-david-snead-comments-on-megaupload-carpathia-leaseweb-revenue-stats-new-single-digit-claim-highly-unlikely/
