TorrentSpy Slapped with $110 Million Judgement
Written by Ernesto on May 07, 2008TorrentSpy 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.
This default judgment is the result of an ongoing court case between the MPAA and Valence Media, TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnel’s company, that started early 2006.
It is uncertain at this point whether TorrentSpy will appeal.
Unsurprisingly, MPAA’s Dan Glickman was very pleased with the outcome of the case that lasted over two years, as he said:
“This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of sites. The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders.”
“The claims made by the MPAA in this case don’t stand up to any sort of scrutiny,” says Andrew Norton, head of the US Pirate Party in a response. “It is also clear that our judicial system urgently needs some unbiased education in modern technical matters, as anyone that has watched this case knows the judge is out of her depth. What chance does justice have in that situation?”
In 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular than any other BitTorrent site, but this changed quickly in August 2007, when a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data. The judge ruled that TorrentSpy had to monitor its users in order to create detailed logs of their activities, and hand these over to the MPAA.
In a response to this decision - and to ensure the privacy of their users - TorrentSpy decided that it was best to block access to all users from the US. This led to a huge decrease in traffic and revenue.
This was not enough for the MPAA, who argued that TorrentSpy had ignored the court decision. The legal battle continued, and this lead to a preventative closure of the site by Justin, to protect the privacy of its users.
UPDATE - Wired have the judgement available in their coverage here
UPDATE - TorrentSpy will appeal the decision.
Previously: Test: Does Your ISP Slow Down BitTorrent Traffic?
Next: MPAA Demands $15 Million from The Pirate Bay
157 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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they will never top us from downloading !!!!
I would like to say thanks to Justin for the site and what he did to protect our privacy, the best of British luck goes out to Justin I hope he can sort his problems.
http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/994/nvidia-boss-on-pc-piracy-it-sucks—better-authentication-needed
well nvidia supports this also, so tthat means this shit will never end.
“11 May 07, 2008 at 22:21 by GoldfingerQuote Goldfinger
Fuck you MPAA Communists.”
wasn´t torrent systems elogiated by countries like venezuela, torrents and the free media is like comunism lol
you should say capitalism ^^
Completely political decision by the courts - showing big business runs the country.
They have major polluters that cause cancer in millions of people around the world each year that very very rarely ever get settlements against them anywhere close to this.
It’s a damn shame when someone copies some DVDs and CDs gets fined more than corporations that murder! I’m glad I am not an American today!
What a bunch of crap, if they think they’re going to stick TorrentSpys’ head on a stick and intimidate everyone with this “relentless litigation” bullshit they’re wrong. It’s a war of attrition and all they’re doing is wasting money, file sharing is the future, everyone already has the power to share files, all torrent sites do is make it easier.
We should all donate money to TorrentSpy and pay off the fine if the appeal doesn’t go through successfully. But let’s make sure to do it after they declare bankruptcy, that way the MPAA gets as little money as possible and TorrentSpy lives on.
Fuck our half assed capitalist government that allows shitty companies like MPAA to operate. “Our mission is to stop illegal activities like pirating a $15 movie, but in the process using illegal means to do so” fucking hypocrites. I am just waiting and hoping one day, they get a taste of their own medicine. Oh, and I LOVE this quote “pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders.”
Yet it took these fuck heads TWO YEARS for a prosecution, ONE down EIGHTEEN MILLION to go, good luck!
Fuck you MPAA Think about the people who can’t buy DVDs ?? So let them download them fucking tight gets !!!
Carefull when we criticize the demo/capo sys. What would you chose instead that wouldn’t erode the value of your creativity?
Dear all,
I see people speak in here like the big movie corporations are going into dept or smth. Is this really the case? How come that the most shared movies are the ones on the top of the blogbusters list? Could it be that torrent sites work as a good advertishment too? hmmm?
And what about TV series? Let me tell you this; I am Greek living in Greece and I can tell you that greek Tv channels would never buy american TV series, as expencive as they did, if their popularity was not teste on the internet before hand.
And what about all the equipment we use for burning etc? Don’t some of the same companies that are so strict about copyrighing also produce the blank cds/dvds, the burnes, or the divx dvd players?
Hmm, again it sounds like they are making lot of money from that too…
IMO, these companies should stop lawsuiting and follow the trend. If torrent spy can make up to 110000000$, why they dont start sharing their movies online, charge smth like s cents, for a medium quality?
Could it be that they actually don’t loose so much money, but they instead want to suck dry every last penny out of us?
A.
classic answers - all the thieves trying to justify why they steal moveis, music, porn. sad bunch
*repost in the right place :)*
There needs to be a follow up that explains everything properly.
The judgement is not what this article says it is, it has to do with how Torrentspy failed to follow court orders as they tried to protect its users information and NOTHING about copyright infringement or the legality of the site.. ;)
The judgement cannot be used for other cases as it has nothing to do with copyright infringement etc.
“This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of sites. The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders.”
That comment and others made by RIAA constantly right now are nullified as the judgement had nothing to do with any of it.
Again typical RIAA behavior claiming wins they have not won yet, the only win they got was bankrupting Torrentspy.
To round it up: Nothing has changed except we now know it hurts bigtime not doing as the court wants..
Didnt have time to read >all< comments if anyone else pointed out this kinda huge flaw in the story.. ;p
You people are all fucked. $110 Million is a pretty low fine considering the street value for all of the information passed from user to user is much higher than that.
This is a big blow to the torrents and I am sure it will continue. But p2p will evolve like it always has. so all you kids who are reading this crap and think its the end of the world and are thinking about going emo and slitting your wrists…wait it out a few months because either nothing will change or a new p2p network/system will arise.
[quote comment="380129"]*repost in the right place :)*
There needs to be a follow up that explains everything properly.
The judgement is not what this article says it is, it has to do with how Torrentspy failed to follow court orders as they tried to protect its users information and NOTHING about copyright infringement or the legality of the site.. ;)
The judgement cannot be used for other cases as it has nothing to do with copyright infringement etc.
“This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of sites. The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders.”
That comment and others made by RIAA constantly right now are nullified as the judgement had nothing to do with any of it.
Again typical RIAA behavior claiming wins they have not won yet, the only win they got was bankrupting Torrentspy.
To round it up: Nothing has changed except we now know it hurts bigtime not doing as the court wants..
Didnt have time to read >all< comments if anyone else pointed out this kinda huge flaw in the story.. ;p[/quote]
Have you actually read the judgement? Page 1, line 26 says its a final judgement on the claims of the plaintiff.
Page 2 line 4 shows how the $110.97M was broken down, referencing copyright law. Order 2 (starting page 2 line 19) states that any representative of the company is perminantly prevented from engaging in any copyright infringement.
Seems like a pretty damned solid case of ruling on the site, exactly as the article says, and not what you thought.
Where did you get this mistaken idea?
@Ben Jones
“Order 2 (starting page 2 line 19) states that any representative of the company is perminantly prevented from engaging in any copyright infringement.”
Isn’t that the law already for everybody?
It’s a bullshit law anyway.
[quote comment="380331"]@Ben Jones
“Order 2 (starting page 2 line 19) states that any representative of the company is perminantly prevented from engaging in any copyright infringement.”
Isn’t that the law already for everybody?
It’s a bullshit law anyway.[/quote]
ok 1) Its a judgement, not a law
2) This was a civil case, whilst breaching a court order is contempt of court, and doesn’t require a copyright case to be brought by a rights owner. instead, a notification to the court that it’s order has been violated. IIRC, you can go to jail for contempt.
I am not a lawyer, however, so my interpritaton in 2 might be a bit off, but that’s my understand of the law as it applied.
Ben
I used to loved that site but it’s been on a slope for about a year or two. Guess i know why.
Long Live Free Internet
[quote comment="380291"]
Where did you get this mistaken idea?[/quote]
Their lawyer Ira Rothken: “The ruling was because Torrent Spy refused to reveal the identities of website users and the matter of whether the website infringed copyrights was never resolved in court.”
I did go around the “never trust a lawyer” rule though.. :)
The music industry cartel plays their songs for free on tour TVs and radios, in our cars, and in the shops on a 24 hour basis until you can’t get it out of your head and then they sue for millions those who choose not to buy them. They are crooks. An mp3 is worth nothing, it can be reproduced at zero cost at no loss to the record industry cartel and if I was TorrentSpy I would not pay the money grubbing zionist criminals the shit off my shoe.
I actually feel very sorry for that Justin Bloke. He must have made some decent dosh while the site was working but $110mil is definitely more than he could ever get in his life.
He’ll probably spend the rest of his life in debtors prison.
Instead of mourning the site i suggest we all take a minutes silence for the brave soul who took on the man .
holy shit dude. 110m! dude if i worked at the mpaa HQ i would so pee in the coffee.
death to MPAA
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