TorrentSpy shuts down

A prolonged legal fight with the movie industry has forced TorrentSpy, BitTorrent's popular search engine, to shut down.

"The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile," said a note on TorrentSpy's front door. "We spent the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the rights of our users and ourselves... we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown."

In 2006, the largest Hollywood film studios accused TorrentSpy in a lawsuit of encouraging movie piracy. A federal judge ordered the company last June to provide the studios with user information found in its computer RAM.

TorrentSpy, often used by file sharers to find bootleg films, tried a series of legal maneuvers in an attempt to protect the anonymity of visitors. In August, the company cut off access to residents of the United States, presumably to avoid complying with the court order.

In December, the judge in the case found that TorrentSpy operators intentionally destroyed evidence in the case, making it impossible for the Motion Picture Association of America 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 judge ruled against TorrentSpy, which meant that all the company could do was argue over the amount of damages. From that point on, it appeared as if TorrentSpy's days were numbered.

[James7777777]

When are they going to shut down google

Google is a great search engine for torrents.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the+bank+job+filetype%3Atorrent&btnG=Search

When will they shut google down for doing the same thing sites like torrentspy and oink did.

[russkeller]

With Google it's obviously frivolous

But with torrentspy the government is just ignorant enough to buy the industries argument.

[caboose221]

Google has so much money its not funny(lol that rhymed) they would have so much to protect themselves. I love Google, it makes life on the net so simple( you know that the internet is under 18 years young D:).

[atinaebud]

Torrent Spy shut down

Maybe they should consider shutting down the record industry and the movie makers for forcing us to listen to and watch their outrageously overpriced crap.

[BALTHOR1]

Movie hackers

All torrent files are cleared by the Government.They're changing the content without permission.

[dedalus6]

A SAD day for internet users

Such a waste of money and resources to stop something that cannot be stopped since the invention of internet. People will always share their contents regardless legal or not.

[happysmp]

They protected us...thank you

$30,000 in fines to destroy information about its users. That's protecting your users...and there's alot to be said about that.

[protaper07]

god bless torrentspy

torrents.to

[S_MARQUEZ]

I'M SPEECHLESS

WOW...

[caboose221]

The government will never stop illegal sharing of files. Its impossible.

The price of things on the internet these days is ridiculous. People who want to do things in there life like Photo editing want to use Photoshop 1000 dollars, video editing: Sony Vegas 550 dollars, Adobe Premiere Pro 800 dollars. Windows Vista Ultimate 220 dollars. Its ridiculous. It will always happen.