The US Justice Department’s crackdown on the owners of Megaupload as operators of a web service that promotes copyright infringement, leading to the shutting down of the domain names owned by Megaupload Limited had created waves in the file storage and hosting industry. People in the business are now searching for alternatives to sustain the websites run based on the Megaupload’s file hosting, while many face the possible permanent deletion of their files stored on the website.

Users have not been able to access the files they stored on the site, and no warning as been given out about the future of this content as well. It is also possible that although the files maybe inaccessible, they might still exist in the Megaupload servers. However, for those who did host infringed content, the prospects do not look good.

Since Megaupload’s accounts have been frozen, it is impossible for them to pay their hosting bills, which could lead to the files being deleted within days. The site is one of the world’s most popular hosting websites, and would naturally have a high hosting bill to pay. It cannot pay hosting companies to keep the files as well, and these companies would not continue to host files with a simple promise that Megaupload will pay them in the future.

Apart from storage a lot of data, these hosting companies will definitely not want to associate with a websites whose future is not certain. But the biggest loss is obviously for the users who had stored a lot of data on the site. If their Megaupload files are deleted, they’ll probably have to find alternatives for storage which is not as easy as it sounds.

For the premium users of Megaupload, they’ll lose out on a lot of subscription money they’d paid to access the premium features. Besides this, some users might have stored files with no back-up or alternative source, and if the files are deleted, they’ll be essentially lost forever.