TorrentSpy renews legal campaign against MPAA

Nearly a year since being ordered to pay the big film studios more than $100 million, TorrentSpy is launching a legal comeback.

On Tuesday evening, TorrentSpy filed an appeal to overturn a judgment issued by U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper. Last May, Cooper ordered TorrentSpy, which shut its doors as a result of the legal fight with the Motion Picture Association of America, to pay nearly $111 million in damages to the MPAA for infringing the copyright of thousands of films and TV shows.

TorrentSpy was a favorite tool for those seeking bootleg films, but site operators always insisted that its search engine was used for legitimate purposes as well. The appeal was filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, according to TorrentSpy's attorney, Ira Rothken.

"We're arguing the court was wrong in procedures and wrong in judgment," Rothken told CNET News on Wednesday. "In a one-hour hearing regarding discovery issues, the court terminated the case and didn't give TorrentSpy a trial. We believe the court was wrong and abused its discretion. We believe the court ordered TorrentSpy to do things that (were) in violation of the site's privacy policy, and we believe that the tension between the court's discovery orders and user privacy rights is an important issue on appeal."

A year ago, the judge found that TorrentSpy operators intentionally destroyed evidence in the case, making it impossible for the MPAA to get a fair trial. They had earlier been fined $30,000 for violations of discovery orders and were warned of severe sanctions, if they continued to ignore the orders.

The MPAA had always argued that TorrentSpy's reason for existing was to aid those interested in pirating films.

"TorrentSpy blatantly contributed to, profited from, and induced massive copyright infringement," an MPAA representative said. "Anyone engaging in the same conduct as TorrentSpy would be liable for copyright infringement. The court clearly recognized that TorrentSpy defendants engaged in evidence destruction because they knew that such evidence would prove damaging to them. The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content."

The site attempted a series of legal maneuvers to protect the anonymity of visitors. In August 2007, the company cut off access to residents of the United States, presumably to avoid complying with a court order that it turn over users' personal information.

More to come.

[Wookiee-1138]

It's kind of ironic Anon is going after the likes of Scientology instead of folks like this who directly threaten their interests.

I guess it's proof that they aren't all clueless, pimply teenagers. They know when they have a leg to stand on and when they don't.

[seven7dust]

there's still so many other sites like torrentspy
there's literally 100s if not1000s of torrent sites with huge usersbases !
why single them out ?

[Sausagebiscuit]

pick the weakest of the bunch to make an example from perhaps? just a thought

can't recall, but were they hosted in the US also? Many other trackers aren't in the US and are out of reach of (sometimes) insane US copyright law. I say sometimes, because while I agree with the right to protect your work, I don't agree with tactics used 'sometimes'. :)

[seven7dust]

torrentspy isn't the weakest of the lot
infact they were the biggest if memory serves me correctly !
and as far as the country of origin goes
thats exactly the point no matter where the site is hosted
people r going to use torrents if they want to !
so other things need to be done like preventing it from the user side
as long as there is demand their will always be ways be supply

[Renegade Knight]

Good for them. I hope they win. The tools of the trade are different than infringment. The MPAA knows dang well that if they rlease a move it's "inducing piracy" just by the movies existance (that's using their own logic). The internet would therefore also induce priacye as do compuers, media, keyboards, phone companies, cable companies, camera makers and such. MPAA logic would have all of these things pay a fee to them. What would we get out of it? Nothing. The MPAA would still have us pay for movies that we have now paid for by every single company that had to pay a fee due to the infringment they have claimed. Isn't that rackateering?

Far better to stick to the law. People infringe. Not the tools they use.

[contentcreator--2008]

Good thinking. Why don't you walk into a bank wearing a ski mask and carrying an AK-47 and see how it works for you.

[Kainchild]

The MPAA isn't coming out and saying this and neither is the judge but basically it comes down to this, if you are a provider of a service that permits file trading, you have to provide a copyright protection format that prevents any form of illegal files from being traded off of your service. In other words, any file trading service would have to have some means of reading each file and guaranteeing that the file does in fact have legal information. That would mean Torrent would have to have a copy of every movie, song, and anything else that would need protection to be able to extrapolate which copy is legal and which isn't and have a program that would do this properly. What I find hypocritical about this whole thing is how come Microsoft and other program file trading services don't get this same treatment? Any program that permits file trading like Microsoft's Windows doesn't seem to get the same treatment as Torrent does. Why is that? Just because Torrent provides a more efficient means of transferring files, this is just cause to sue them? I wonder what motivates a judge to ignore these other programs and makes judgments like the one spoken in this article?

[contentcreator--2008]

Perhaps it's because 99+% of the torrent traffic is stolen???

[casiodorus]

Oh dear. I hope that they don't go after Googlemaps, map/map book makers, map sellers, and web sites showing movie retail vendors and rental locations...because by the MPAA's broad explaination of piracy they can ALL responsible for showing people exactly where to go and steal CD's, DVD's and Blue-ray disks.

Oh dear. I hope they don't go after Microsoft for making the OS that makes it possible for people to pirate. I hope they don't go after Dell/Asus and other computer manufacturers for building computers that make it possible for people to pirate. Oh dear, I hope they don't go after ISP's because people are using the internet to pirate. Ooops...they've already gone after ISP's, and they're already in bed with MS and computer manufacturers to attempt to place restrictions on what people can or can not do...EVEN with products they legally purchased.

Torrentwise - Just because someone decides they're going to share a file, create a HASH file of where the file is located (and this file does not actually contained any copyright information whatsoever), and they upload this non-copyright infringing file to a web server that is owned by someone else; this does NOT mean the web site is responsible for piracy. You see, a HASH file doesn't contain copyright information, it only contains information on where the file is stored.

The MPAA really sucks. It's the lawyers and executives with their multimillion dollar annual salaries that are upset because they believe that people who can not afford to buy a movie to begin with are hampering their purchase of yet another multi-million dollar mansion or the latest private jet.

Judges are too stupid to understand all of this, and the MPAA is quite compelling in feeding on their ignorance and relying on suing people that can not afford to fight back.

Well think again MPAA, some people can and will fight back.

[jtjt145]

MPAA + RIA = bunch of blood suckers

[contentcreator--2008]

copyright thieves = whiny cheating childish thieves

[ajhoughton]

MPAA and the courts were quite right in this instance. TorrentSpy showed nothing but contempt for the court, and was punished accordingly.

Regardless of whether you believe TorrentSpy was intentionally assisting copyright infringement (and it seems likely that they were, given their appalling behaviour during the previous court case), the fact is that they were warned on more than one occasion about the consequences of intentionally destroying evidence in order to hinder or prevent discovery during their trial. They deserve what they got, and frankly they're crazy to appeal this decision.

[paulej]

The issue with TorrentSpy, as well as with the "old" Napster, is that what people primarily used the service for was piracy. I have the opinion that the only practical use for such web sites is for piracy, but clearly BitTorrent has a different opinion about the technology employed. And, most certainly, the technology could be used to improve legal content delivery, perhaps balancing server load, etc. (I'm not an expert on the protocol, but it appears to have some redeeming qualities.) Bottom line is that the protocol and services like this most certainly can be used for legitimate purposes, but was primarily used for illegitimate purposes. Unless given an opportunity to grow (and I would understand a certain amount of "encouragement"), we will never benefit from legitimate uses of such services.

If the company was trying to find a legitimate business model, they ought to have been given an opportunity. I have serious concerns with waging a war against a company with claims that they are breaking the law without proving that breaking the law was the sole intent or primary intent. The company should have been given an opportunity to explain what legitimate business they were trying to build. And, it should also be recognized that it can be a challenge to do that with such services new technology and ideas.

YouTube is a shining example of a legitimate business that is struggling with how to deal with copyright issues: just how many copyright violations can one count there on any day of the week? The public would likely scream if the government forced Google to shut it down.

The old Napster was not so fortunate, but it certainly helped to transform the music industry nonetheless. They were the first major new music distribution "service" in a time when the music industry did not want to see such a thing. Now, legitimate services flourish (including the new Napster), because that is what people want. And, I do not mean "free" (sure, people want that), but I mean that people want to use new technologies. Instead, the movie industry introduces BluRay and the same silly kind of region coding that prevents me from watching a disc I buy outside the US on my US BluRay player. Where are the downloadable movies I can watch on my portable media player while flying on a plane? Why can't I download the 5AM news to my media player to watch while in the subway? Copyright owners need to be paid, but I am certain that they're losing revenue opportunities by using what I consider very classic and dated content distribution methods.

I believe it is imperative that the content owners work with companies like this to reach new markets and to grow the industry together.

[GarCorp]

I think the MPAA is in need of a reality check. All the record companies ******* about piracy, and demanded DRM. Now, they have all dropped it.

For example, If I want a song, I can "pirate" it - but it's not worth my time when I can more easily and time efficiently to buy it from iTunes for 99 cents.

Now, I know the Movie industry is more pricey to produce, and has to charge accordingly. But I'll wait for a movie to come on HBO, (which I pay for, and HBO in turn, pays a royalty) rather than wasting my time pirating it off of TorenntSpy.

The real problem are bootleggers in China and elsewhere in the world who rip it once and duplicated a bazillion times. Good luck MPAA going after those perpetrators. Anybody who wants to get it free can, and will, at the expense of their time.

If Movie ticket prices were lower, the price of a purchased DVD were lower, etc. there will be less of an issue going after BitTorrent, TorrentSpy, or the dozens / hundreds of other sites that MPAA goes after like a rabid dog.

And as stated in a previous post, the real winners of the MPAA actions are the MPAA and their lawyers. The real losers are people like me who work with studios across the world and THEY have to go out of THEIR way to burn daileys or rough cuts into MY region code (otherwise I need five DVD players and Blu-Ray players ... yeah, nice model.