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TorrentSpy Fined $110 Million for Copyright Infringement
2:11 PM EDT Fri. May. 09, 2008
Groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America are serious about protecting their work, and they are showing their muscle. The MPAA launched the action against TorrentSpy, which was found guilty of "willfully inducing" copyright infringement through its Website. TorrentSpy is a BitTorrent "tracker," a server that aids in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol.
TorrentSpy argued that it merely indexed torrent files and not the data in question, and so it should not be any more for copyright infringement than any other search engine.
The $110 million figure, one of the largest judgments ever entered for copyright infringement, was calculated by multiplying the site's 3,669 "shown" infringements by $30,000, which is the maximum penalty available under certain conditions in the Copyright Act.
A federal judge in Los Angeles rendered the judgment against Valence Media, the company operating TorrentSpy, for willful inducement of copyright infringement, contributory infringement and vicarious copyright infringement. However, it seems unlikely the MPAA will collect the entire $110 million as TorrentSpy ceased operations March 24 of this year. The founders have filed bankruptcy.
According to the MPAA, the worldwide motion picture industry, including foreign and domestic producers, distributors, theaters, video stores and pay-per-view operators lose more than $18 billion annually as a result of movie theft. More than $7 billion in losses are attributed to illegal Internet distributions, while $11 billion is the result of illegal copying and bootlegging.
