The MPAA isn’t known for wasting opportunities to obtain information about BitTorrent sites and their users. In 2005 the MPAA paid around $15,000 to a hacker who obtained emails from TorrentSpy and The Pirate Bay. The case was heard in court and won by the MPAA, but this decision will soon be appealed.
Exactly a year ago one of the largest torrent sites shut down for good, and a month later the owner was ordered to pay a 110 million dollar fine. We catch up with TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnell, who’s still in court fighting the MPAA, to see how he views the developments of the past year.
TorrentSpy, once the most frequently visited BitTorrent site, has appealed the ruling in their case against the MPAA. Last year, they were ordered to pay a $110 million fine after the court terminated the case, but TorrentSpy’s lawyer Ira Rothken believes that the issues at stake warrant an appeal.
After it was ruled that a hacker who obtained unauthorized emails from TorrentSpy on behalf of the MPAA did not technically intercept them under the WireTap Act, the EFF has filed a friend-of-the-court brief. EFF describes the recent decision as a “dangerous attempt to circumvent privacy laws,” and wants to see it overturned.
TorrentSpy has been ordered to pay a $110 million fine by a federal judge in Los Angeles. The BitTorrent site was found guilty on the charges of copyright infringement of several movie studios represented by the MPAA.
A little over a year ago, TorrentSpy.com was still the most visited BitTorrent site, but times have changed. After an expensive two year battle with the MPAA, TorrentSpy decided to throw in the towel and the site has now shut down permanently.
A Los Angeles court decided against TorrentSpy in their ongoing legal battle with the MPAA and terminated their case. According to the ruling, TorrentSpy was sanctioned for destructing evidence.
BitTorrent is by far the most popular way to transfer large files over the Internet, but where will it be five years from now? To get some answers to this question TorrentFreak asked the admins of Mininova, The Pirate Bay, IsoHunt and TorrentSpy what they think the future holds for BitTorrent and their websites.
Over the past months the TorrentSpy crew has made several drastic changes to their website. They have stopped hosting .torrent files, and even banned US visitors. However, this is not enough according to the MPAA who has filed another complaint and asked the judge for sanctions against the popular BitTorrent site.
The MPAA has caused TorrentSpy, once the most popular BitTorrent site, some serious headaches. After a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data stored in RAM, they decided to block access to US users, consequently their traffic dropped significantly.
Starting today, TorrentSpy blocks all searches from US visitors and redirects them to a privacy statement. TorrentSpy is caught up in a lawsuit in which the MPAA demands that TorrentSpy hands over all user info stored in “random access memory” (RAM).
