A huge movement in the controversy of the whole illegal download issue came to the fore this week when recently closed site SpyTorrent was ordered to pay the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) an unbelievable $110million in damages - around £56million in UK cash.
SpyTorrent closed its doors apparently of its own accord on 24 March, with its parent company Valence Media and the owners filing for bankruptcy. Said MPAA chairman Dan Glickman of the ruling, 'This substantial money judgement sends a strong message about the illegality of these sites… The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios'.
Using the legitimate BitTorrent file-sharing technology to exchange large files online without the need for a central server, SpyTorrent represents a big scalp for the soon-to-be much wealthier MPAA.
The US District judge in charge of the ruling said TorrentSpy had to pay $30,000 for each of the 3,699 infringements committed, making it one of the largest fines ever imposed for copyright theft.
A statement on the TorrentSpy site simply says, 'The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile'.
With a $110million fine hanging over their heads, we reckon that could just be the understatement of the century.
http://news.bbc.co.uk
Share this article:
Del.icio.us this
