Entertainment Industry Wants More People To Know About OpenBitTorrent Tracker

Mon, Jul 6th 2009 3:21am

Filed Under:
copying, trackers

Companies:
the pirate bay

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Could Someone Just Recreate The Pirate Bay?

from the bet-on-it-happening dept

As plenty of people have been pointing out, if The Pirate Bay goes away/changes/shuts down/whatever, there are a ton of sites ready and eagerly waiting to take it's place. But JJ King makes an even bigger point: the whole of The Pirate Bay is not a lot of data, such that it would be rather easy to just copy the entire site and recreate it. In fact, it seems likely that others are probably making use of this fact already, and there may be multiple "copies" of The Pirate Bay quickly being set up. So, even if the site goes away, all it will really do is further splinter the sites that upset the entertainment industry -- but it will hardly stop them or even slow them down.

Legal Issues

Wed, May 7th 2008 6:29pm

Filed Under:
bittorrent, lawsuits, mpaa, trackers

Companies:
mpaa, torrentspy

23 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Court Orders TorrentSpy To Pay $110 Million To MPAA

from the don't-destroy-evidence dept

Just as IsoHunt is gearing up to fight its MPAA lawsuit, a judge has ordered TorrentSpy to pay $110 million to the MPAA in a similar lawsuit. However, despite the MPAA's Dan Glickman giving the expected "this is a warning to other such sites" quote, this actually shouldn't have much of an impact on other such cases -- as the details are somewhat different here. The problem with TorrentSpy's case was that the company was found to have destroyed evidence, which resulted in the ruling. It had little to do with the actual issues at hand. And, yes, while the "destroyed evidence" claim was somewhat exaggerated when the judge included TorrentSpy's refusal to spy on its users, the destruction of evidence went further than just not spying on users. The company was found to have deleted specific evidence, including forum posts and directory info. So, unless all the other torrent search engines out there also deleted evidence, it's hard to see how this case acts as a warning to anyone over anything other than the stupidity of destroying evidence. As for getting any money, given that TorrentSpy has shut down, the MPAA probably won't be getting any money -- not that they'd be giving it to moviemakers anyway.

Legal Issues

Tue, May 6th 2008 4:11am

Filed Under:
bittorrent, search engines, trackers

Companies:
isohunt, mpaa

29 Comments | Leave a Comment..

isoHunt Tries The 'Just A Search Engine' Defense

from the let's-see-how-this-works dept

isoHunt, one of the BitTorrent tracker sites that the MPAA generated publicity for with a lawsuit a couple of years ago, has filed a response to the judge's request for more information on how BitTorrent and BitTorrent tracker sites work. The MPAA, of course, positioned isoHunt as a den of piracy. But isoHunt, following the lead of TorrentSpy, has pointed out to the judge that it's no different than a search engine, indexing the various BitTorrent files out there. isoHunt, itself, is never involved in copyright infringement and, of course, there are plenty of authorized BitTorrent trackers out there. It will be interesting to see a judge finally rule on this issue. TorrentSpy lost its case, but not over this issue. In that case, the guys at TorrentSpy destroyed evidence -- which is a huge no-no. Hopefully a judge recognizes why search engines shouldn't be blamed for infringement that results from the use of the website.

Legal Issues

Fri, Oct 12th 2007 3:31pm

Filed Under:
bittorrent, log files, search engines, trackers

Companies:
mpaa, torrentspy