TorrentSpy loses Californian copyright lawsuit

The BitTorrent indexing website TorrentSpy.com has lost a Californian copyright case as a result of a federal judge ruling in favour of the MPAA that it had hid and destructed evidence, which made a fair trial impossible.  The court claims this harsh decision was necessary as it had such an impact on the movie studios’ ability to prove its case that it would make it impossible to make a rightful decision.  As expected, the MPAA hailed the court’s decision as a significant victory for the major Hollywood studios. 

Going by the court, TorrentSpy’s operators have engaged in a widespread systematic effort to destroy evidence, including modifying/deleting directory titles containing copyrighted titles, forum posts detailing how to find certain copyrighted works and the IP addresses of forum members and it also hid the names and addresses of forum moderators, despite being ordered to preserve all these details.  TorrentSpy was previously fined $30,000 for withholding information and was warned about severe consequences if they do this again.

TorrentSpy’s attorney Ira Rothken claims no data was intentionally destroyed and that some actions were taken to protect the privacy of the website’s users.  He went on to say that TorrentSpy will appeal the decision, as the movie studios have not proved their case, let alone proved that TorrentSpy was involved in any copyright infringement.  Finally, he said that the site is back to business as usual with its servers located in The Netherlands. 

Further info on this can be read on c|net and on PC World.