TorrentSpy Shuts Down, Charging Legal Atmosphere 'Too Hostile'

TorrentSpy, the BitTorrent search engine which was fined $30,000 after losing a lawsuit brought by the Motion Picture Association of America, has closed its doors. "The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile," TorrentSpy founder Justin Bunnel wrote in a statement placed on the service's Web site. In December a Los Angeles judged ruled for the motion pictures industry after TorrentSpy destroyed evidence that had been requested as part of a copyright infringement lawsuit. "We now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown," Bunnel wrote. [via All Headline News] permalink (March 28th, 2008)

Entertainment Industry Wins a Round on Piracy

In what was seen as a victory for entertainment companies, a federal judge in Los Angeles issued damages totaling $111 million against an Internet company that helped users find copyright material free. The Wall Street Journal reports. The defendant, Valence Media LLC's TorrentSpy, was one of the Web's largest "torrent trackers," meaning it helped people find movies and other material they might want to download. TorrentSpy closed in March, telling users on its site the legal climate was "simply too hostile." It didn't store the video files on its own site but directed users to other locations. The dollar value of the award -- which Judge Florence-Marie Cooper said she calculated by assigning a value of $30,000 to each of the 3,699 infringements shown -- should get the attention of people running similar sites. But they are largely based overseas and out of reach of U.S. law. It is unlikely the movie companies that sued will get nearly the total damages. Valence Media's principals have declared bankruptcy. Valence is based in Nevis, a Caribbean island, and has filed for bankruptcy protection. The defendants plan to appeal, their lawyer, Ira Rothken, said." Related Links permalink (May 8th, 2008)

BitTorrent search site loses case

TorrentSpy, a website which facilitated the online exchange of films, music and TV programmes without permission has lost a US copyright case. The BBC reports. "A judge made a default ruling in favour of the MPAA after she said the site's operators had tampered with evidence. The site had ignored an order to retain server logs and the unique online addresses of computers which traded files using the BitTorrent program. The ruling could have personal privacy implications because the information TorrentSpy had been told to retain was held in Random Access Memory of computers." permalink (December 21st, 2007)

Wired Exclusive: I Was a Hacker for the MPAA

According to Wired, promises of Hollywood fame and fortune persuaded a young hacker to betray former associates in the BitTorrent scene to Tinseltown's anti-piracy lobby, according to the hacker. "In an exclusive interview with Wired News, gun-for-hire hacker Robert Anderson tells for the first time how the Motion Picture Association of America promised him money and power if he provided confidential information on Torrent Spy, a popular BitTorrent search site. According to Anderson, the MPAA told him: "We would need somebody like you. We would give you a nice paying job, a house, a car, anything you needed.... if you save Hollywood for us you can become rich and powerful." Read full article. permalink (October 23rd, 2007)

Video download site ordered to spy on users

In a recent court ruling, made public last week, a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy.com to track the behavior of its own users - a means of gathering evidence in a lawsuit against the site by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). the Register reports. "On Friday, the judge granted a stay of the order, and TorrentSpy plans to appeal. The MPAA filed suit against TorrentSpy in February last year, accusing the BitTorrent-based site of facilitating illegal downloads of copyrighted material. The new court order requires the site to turn over server logs of user activity, including IP addresses and downloaded files. TorrentSpy already collects this data in memory, but never saves it to disk. The site says that keeping server logs would violate its privacy policy. ... If the decision is upheld, some believe it's capable of eroding end-user privacy across the Net. Before Judge Choijian's ruling, no US company has been required to log memory data and turn it over to a court as evidence. permalink (June 12th, 2007)