MegaUpload hires outside companies to store the data, for a fee. But MegaUpload attorney Ira Rothken said Sunday that the government has frozen its money.

A letter filed in the case Friday by the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said storage companies Carpathia Hosting Inc. and Cogent Communications Group Inc. may begin deleting data Thursday. Spokespersons for the two companies and for the US Attorney's Office did not respond to messages Sunday night.

The letter said the government copied some data from the servers but did not physically take them. It said that now that it has executed its search warrants, it has no right to access the data. The servers are controlled by Carpathia and Cogent and issues about the future of the data must be resolved with them, prosecutors said.

Rothken said the company is working with prosecutors to try to keep the data from being erased. He said at least 50 million MegaUpload users have data in danger of being erased.

Source: CBS News