[Infowarrior] - Bye, Bye TorrentSpy

[Richard Forno]

MPAA copyright punch up knocks out TorrentSpy
Former BitTorrent champ throws in the towel
By Chris Williams → More by this author
Published Thursday 27th March 2008 14:43 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/27/torrentspy_shuttered/

The operators of TorrentSpy, once the most popular BitTorrent tracker, have
been forced to permanently shutter the site after losing a battle with
rights holders.

A Los Angeles court ruled in favour of the Motion Picture Ass. of America in
December after TorrentSpy destroyed evidence, claiming it was protecting
users' privacy. The judge said it had made a fair trial impossible and
imposed a $30,000 fine.

This statement has been posted the TorrentSpy site by its founder Justin
Bunnell:

    We have decided on our own, not due to any court order or agreement, to
bring the Torrentspy.com search engine to an end and thus we permanently
closed down worldwide on March 24, 2008.

    The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests,
and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile. We spent
the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the
rights of our users and ourselves.

    Ultimately the court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent
with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and international law;
therefore, we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy
protection for our users - permanent shutdown.

    It was a wild ride,

    The TorrentSpy Team

Rights holders might question how TorrentSpy's operators made those
"hundreds of thousands" of dollars in the first place.

The December decision marked the knockout blow in a lengthy pummeling of
TorrentSpy by the film industry lobby. The site's operators unsuccessfully
attempted to appease US courts by applying a filter against copyright files.
When that didn't work it began blocking American IP addresses.

The restrictions resulted in a slide in the popularity of TorrentSpy among
filesharers, which was funded by advertising. Its crown as the most popular
BitTorrent tracker was taken by the Pirate Bay.

The militant Swedish outfit's administrators are currently in court
themselves. Peter Sunde, one of the four on trial, reacted to the permanent
closure of Torrentspy today, writing: "I was not the biggest TorrentSpy fan
out there. It was a personal thing about filters and such that I could not
agree to, but I must applaud Justin Bunnell for the way he has been taking
care of his users and their privacy.

"Today all big torrent sites are pressured somehow. [The Pirate Bay] has
it's [sic] share of pressure, however we expected it and have a legal system
that is more just in cases like this. The way that the copyright lobby is
going at this is totally wrong and we can't let them win."

Illegal filesharers are now facing a pincer movement from the record,
software, and film industries. As well as attacking BitTorrent trackers, a
long-running international lobbying campaign to force ISPs to disconnect
persistent infringers seems to be gaining ground. Japanese telcos have
acquiesced to the scheme and the French government, ISPs, and rights holders
have agreed to implement a similar system.

Westminster is, meanwhile, threatening new anti-filesharing laws if UK
internet providers don't voluntarily agree sanctions against repeat
copyright infringers.