TorrentSpy gets SLAMMED.
May 10, 2008 – 1:37 pm by Andrew
Popular torrent search engine, TorrentSpy, has been slammed with a final ruling by a Federal judge that will force the company to pay $110 million ($110,000,000.00 <– Yes, that’s a big number) to the Motion Picture Association of America after years of struggling with court trials.
The MPAA filed the suit against TorrentSpy in February 2006, accusing the company of offering thousands of copyrighted films and TV shows. Since then, the company has dumped money trying to defend themselves and had even blocked American-access to the site some time later, however that didn’t help at all being the case was already filed and the files were already up there.
TorrentSpy’s owners, Justin Bunnell and Wes Park, filed for bankruptcy.
“This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of these sites,” MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said, according to Reuters. “The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios.”
TorrentSpy shut down its site on March 24th leaving only an index page with a “Goodbye” notice to its users stating, ““The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile.” The notice also says that the decision to shut down the site was made on their own and not related to court-order.
This is a huge victory for the MPAA and they plan to turn it into a global example to scare other torrent sites to the point where they’ll shut themselves down before they get into trouble as well. The movie industry, stores, producers, theaters and distributors lose over $18 billion each year from online piracy and bootlegging.
3 Responses to “TorrentSpy gets SLAMMED.”
Ouch…
By Turbohog on May 10, 2008
Obligatory “fuck the MPAA and RIAA.”
I understand why they do it, but that doesn’t make me like them anymore.
By KJ on May 13, 2008
Indeed.
Most people torrent things because they aren’t going to buy them. Hence, if you torrent a product you’re not going to buy, the company you’re torrenting it from is not really losing money, their products are just being used without permission.
By Andrew on May 14, 2008