The local anti-piracy lobby had also started to take notice of the BitTorrent tracker’s growing popularity and decided to take legal action. During November 2007, Svavar Kjarrval, the owner of the tracker, received a preliminary injunction which left him no other choice than to shut down the site.

While the majority of BitTorrent tracker owners would have given up when confronted with legal action, Svavar decided to put up a fight. “I’m going to fight this as far as I possibly can. The general public seems to be on our side,” he told TorrentFreak at the time, and he kept his word.

What followed was a lengthy legal battle that was fought in two rounds. In the first round Torrent.is came out as the winner at both the District Court and the Supreme Court. However, the local equivalent of the RIAA (STEF) simply started a new case based on new claims, so the whole circus started from scratch.

STEF claimed that Torrent.is was violating copyright law and the case went before the District Court again. The Icelandic tracker again came out victorious, but the legal bullying didn’t stop there and STEF took the case to the Supreme Court hoping for a win.

Today the Supreme Court delivered its verdict, announcing Torrent.is had been found guilty. The owner of the site was ordered to pay legal fees of $3,350 and refrain from opening the site to the public.

Svavar informed TorrentFreak that this negative outcome marks the end of a seemingly endless legal battle. Although he is disappointed in the verdict, Svavar said that he simply cannot afford to appeal the case due to a lack of money.

It is expected that the outcome of this case will be used to bolster European anti-piracy outfits to pursue legal action against other BitTorrent trackers. In Iceland, Svavar thinks it will mean that file-sharers will increasingly go underground, if it has any effect at all.

“The battle might be lost but the file-sharing war has not ended,” Svavar concluded.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Its popularity didn’t go unnoticed with the local anti-piracy lobby either. During November last year, Svavar Kjarrval, the owner of the tracker, received a preliminary injunction. While the majority of BitTorrent tracker owners would throw in the towel when confronted with legal action, Svavar decided to put up a fight. “I’m going to fight this as far as I possibly can. The general public seems to be on our side,” he told TorrentFreak at the time.

It turned out that he made the right decision. In March the court ruled in favor of the BitTorrent tracker. Svavar, and all Icelandic BitTorrent users were pleased with the outcome, but the legal bullying was far from over. As expected, the preliminary injunction stayed in effect, as the Icelandic movie and music industries announced they would appeal the decision at the Icelandic Supreme Court.

This May, the case was heard by the Supreme Court, and Torrent.is won again. The case was dismissed because some of the plaintiffs were found to have no legal grounds to pursue an injunction, and Torrent.is received an additional 400,000 ISK ($5025 US or 3250 Euros) on top of the 500,000 ISK that was already awarded in March.

Speaking to TorrentFreak, Torrent.is owner, Svavar Kjarrval, said he was “very happy with the decision.” He even planned to reopen the tracker on the May 16th. However, it never got that far as STEF (the Icelandic RIAA) filed a new lawsuit, demanding the shutdown of the site and some form of financial compensation.

This case was heard, and yesterday – yet again – the District Court ruled in favor of Torrent.is. The court again dismissed STEF’s demand to confirm the injunction. However, the legal bullying is still not over. Not all demands were dismissed directly, and STEF is likely to appeal at the Supreme Court for the ones that weren’t.

“I am happy about that partial victory even though I hoped for a complete dismissal,” Svavar told TorrentFreak in a response to the latest ruling. “The future is uncertain but I have confidence that the Icelandic court system will see that the case is based on a shaky foundation.”

Svavar further said that he’s not sure whether he will reopen the site once this action is over, however long that may take.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This did indeed happen, and today, the Supreme Court announced a ruling (Icelandic) in favor of torrent.is, awarding it an additional 400,000 ISK ($5025 US or 3250 Euros) on top of the 500,000 ISK awarded in March.

The case was dismissed because of legal formalities. It would appear that some of the plaintiffs in the case were found to have no legal grounds to pursue an injunction. When the prosecution team tried to switch plaintiffs in order to save the case, the Supreme Court flat out dismissed it.

Speaking to TorrentFreak, Torrent.is owner, Svavar Kjarrval, said he was “very happy with the decision,” adding he hopes to have the site open on the 16th. “However, the executive of one of the plaintiffs [SMÁÍS] claims he will use any means available to stop the site from reopening. I don’t know if that will succeed or not.”

A spokesman of SMAIS was quoted by mlb.is as saying “This verdict is sad, and it is incredible to deny copyright holders seeking their rights. This is an unnecessary adherence on legal formalities in this case, rather than taking on the subject as it should. There still has not been a formal verdict in this case and it seems to be hard to get a judge to review the facts of the case itself, that is, the copyright laws themselves.”

However, before people rush to host torrent sites there, Svavar has a warning. “This ruling doesn’t state that torrent sites are legal so there is still no certainty as to their legality” Hosting a BitTorrent site still is in the “grey zone” for now, but that doesn’t stop Torrent.is from reopening.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

However, justice works swifter in Iceland than it does in the US, and after only 4 months, the case has been to court.

The decision, however, was as surprising as it was swift. Instead of deciding for or against the defendants, the court simply dismissed the case. It is likely, however, that the plaintiffs will appeal the decision to the Icelandic ‘Supreme Court’ (Hæstiréttur).

The verdict, (available in Icelandic here) seems to hinge on the fact that under Icelandic laws, searching for files, or providing accessibility to them, is legal, as long as the files provided by the service are not themselves copyrighted. Torrent files, are not themselves copyrighted, but are instead metadata , data about data- describing copyrighted material, as indeed are reviews.

Svavar Lúthersson, owner of torrents.is, told TorrentFreak in a response to the court ruling “I’m very glad they came to this decision although it came as a surprise for myself and the plaintiffs. I will have to consult with my lawyer as to what this decision means regarding the preliminary injunction but currently it’s still in effect.”

The preliminary injunction seems likely to stay in effect until an appeal is heard, so the site won’t be back up yet. However, the plaintiffs were ordered to pay the court costs of Istorrent ehf (Pltd), the company behind Torrent.is, and its owner Svavar Lúthersson in the amount of 500,000 Icelandic Krona (approx £3320UK / $6700US / €4250 Euro)

SMÁÍS was asked for their comment on the ruling, but their contact email address was automatically bouncing as failed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The public hearing of the case was held this week, and the plaintiffs asked for a permanent shutdown of the BitTorrent tracker and compensation for damages.

Snæbjörn Steingrímsson, the executive of the Icelandic equivalent of the MPAA (SMAIS) led the investigation, and wants to see his clients compensated for the losses they claim to have suffered because of the tracker.

Steingrímsson said he couldn’t state the exact damages but said they were a few hundred million ISK. Interestingly, Steingrímsson was a member of the BitTorrent site himself, and shared copyrighted material on the tracker as part of his investigation.

Before the tracker was taken offline, Torrent.is had around 26,500 active users, making it by far the largest and most famous private BitTorrent tracker in Iceland. The tracker only allowed Icelandic IPs to connect to their tracker to ensure fast connectivity between peers.

Svavar Kjarrval, the head administrator of Torrent.is is convinced that he has a strong case, as he told TorrentFreak: “The plaintiffs are making an outrageous claim. They argue that website and domain owners should always be responsible for copyright violations of third parties. The case could set a dangerous precedent if the court agrees with their claims.”

It looks like Iceland is getting tougher with file-sharers. Two weeks ago, Reykjavík District Court convicted nine individuals for distributing copyrighted material via Direct Connect. Direct Connect was widely used in Iceland, but nowadays more and more users prefer BitTorrent. The individuals convicted in the Direct Connect case will most likely appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.