February 1, 2012; Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Last month, the file-sharing website Megaupload was shut down by U.S. prosecutors and seven individuals were accused of racketeering based upon charges that Megaupload facilitated millions of illegal downloads. Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom’s house was raided in New Zealand and Dotcom was arrested on international copyright infringement and money laundering charges. Megaupload worried that their data could be deleted as early as Thursday, but a nonprofit group stepped in to help just in the nick of time.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit that describes itself as “the first line of defense” in instances “when our freedoms in the networked world come under attack,” announced that it will be partnering with data storage providers Carpathia Hosting to establish www.megaretrieval.com in order to help lawful Megaupload users based in the United States retrieve their data.

Julia Samuels, staff attorney at EEF, is quoted on the group’s website:

EFF is troubled that so many lawful users of Megaupload.com had their property taken from them without warning and that the government has taken no steps to help them. We think it’s important that these users have their voices heard as this process moves forward.

EEF believes Megaupload needs to support their many lawful customers who were given no notice that they might lose access to their data with no way to get their property back. As stated in their press release, Carpathia hopes the new MegaRetrieval.com site will help drive awareness among Megaupload customers that they are able to seek legal assistance to retrieve their data. This dynamic partnership is intended to save customers thousands of lost files.–Aine Creedon