Victorious BitTorrent Tracker to Return

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Rounding off a series of court decisions and actions regarding BitTorrent sites, torrent.is users will have something to celebrate. The BitTorrent tracker favored by Icelandic downloaders, has won yet again in Court, and the site will reopen May 16th.

torrent icelandWe conclude ‘court week’ at TorrentFreak with the happy news that torrent.is has remained victorious in its legal battles. At the end of March, we explained how the case was dismissed, saying it was likely the plaintiffs (the Icelandic movie and music industry), would be likely to appeal to the Icelandic Supreme Court.

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.

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