TorrentSpy appeals decision in MPAA lawsuit

A once well-known but now-defunct BitTorrent site is appealing a court order to pay nearly $111 million in damages for copyright infringement, nine months after the original ruling.

Ira Rothken, an attorney for TorrentSpy, told CNet that the court was "wrong in procedures and wrong in judgment" by siding with the Motion Picture Association of America, which claimed that the site was purposely set up to connect users with bootleg movies.

TorrentSpy was never proven guilty of copyright infringement, but a Los Angeles court found that the site deliberately hid and destroyed evidence in the case, making a fair trial impossible. In turn, a judge ruled against the site. Previously, the court fined TorrentSpy $30,000 for violations of discovery orders.

The site has always maintained that its search engine was used to find legal downloads as well, and therefore it isn’t solely a conduit for pirated material. "It’s not like they proved their case. It’s not like they proved that TorrentSpy infringed copyright," Justin Bunnell, founder of TorrentSpy, said to CNet at the time of the ruling. "I think we have a lot of grounds for appeal and we’ll pursue it vigorously."

Rothken explained that TorrentSpy felt the evidence sought by the court would have violated the site’s privacy policy, and that "the tension between the court’s discovery orders and user privacy rights is an important issue on appeal."

The MPAA fired back, saying the site blatantly engaged in massive copyright infringement. "The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content," a representative told CNet.

TorrentSpy shut down as of March 2008, saying that "the climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to Torrent files in search results is simply too hostile."