They’re organized crime at its finest. Al Capone would be proud.

I first visited mininova back in late 2004 ;). I first used bittorrent on scarywater in 2003…
early adopter here.

About the $110,000,000 fine. There is no way that Torrentspy ever made even a tenth that just from advertising. I know what the advertising revinue is for some big (albeit not as big as Torrentspy) torrent sites, and even extrapolating up to the traffic level TS would have had, it comes in at less than one million gross revenue (not counting expenses) for a site that was around for only two years.

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 .

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.. :)

Long Live Free Internet

“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

“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.

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?