most likely the data hosting companies were not part of the whole DoJ takedown operation, so for them it's basically like any other client who stops payments....
Their hosting bill had to be staggeringly high. I'd hate to be an ISP with all this equipment sidelined, sitting idle, not generating revenue.
It could be high, but if no-one's accessing it, then you have no bandwidth costs. Just turn off the machines, and take out the harddrives, and store them somewhere safe. You now don't have to pay for bandwidth, power or cooling. Could be much cheaper than when they were left on and used.
Thats a good point. Wow imagine how many harddrives they must use, Megaxxxx was huge. Must be a decent % of their revenue gone.
Only if they have a sufficiently flexible bandwidth contract.
I'm not saying that MegaUpload need to pay for this, but more of how the hosting company can not destroy evidence and not have to spend a lot of money.
Only if that data is classified as evidence. From the post it seems like they're working on making that true.