MPAA Files Lawsuits Targeting Major Torrent Sites

diverge_s writes "Slyck news reports on a new wave of lawsuits the MPAA has filed against major Bit Torrent search sites including: Torrentspy, Isohunt, Torrentbox, Niteshadow and Bthub. From the article: '"Website operators who abuse technology to facilitate infringements of copyrighted works by millions of people are not anonymous - they can and will be stopped," said John G. Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA. "Disabling these powerful networks of illegal file distribution is a significant step in stemming the tide of piracy on the Internet."'"

Shooting themselves in the foot

[Anonymous Coward]

I've bought about 200GBP of DVDs this year as a direct result of downloads from bittorrent. Just thought I'd mention.

FYI

[Kawahee]

A quick glance at TorrentSpy [torrentspy.com] shows that they haven't given up, they're still dishing out torrents. They have a news story about it, but they don't seem to be too concerned.

I remember when the MPAA did this last time and the torrent sites shut down completely because it was in their subpoena (sp?) thing, so does this mean that TorrentSpy is defying the MPAA and (potentially) putting themselves up for harsher penalties?

There is some more info here...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Boing Boing [boingboing.net]
2. Slyck Forums [slyck.com]
3. Another blogger with some good quotes [hishamrana.com]
4. Normality Net with more info [normalitynet.com]
5. Amit's Page with even more commentary [blogspot.com]

Drive by linkings!

Re:FYI

[Kjella]

I remember when the MPAA did this last time and the torrent sites shut down completely because it was in their subpoena (sp?) thing, so does this mean that TorrentSpy is defying the MPAA and (potentially) putting themselves up for harsher penalties?

Well, from the interview it seems they haven't recieved anything from the court, only been informed that a lawsuit has been filed. Once they do get a court order (I believe subpoenas are only request for information), and have something like 24-72 hours to comply (I don't remember exactly), we'll see if they're going to stick to their guns.

Re:A Message from the Internet to the MPAA

[rm69990]

Ummm, you do realize sites like isoHunt don't have torrents *submitted* to them, they index .torrent files available elsewhere on the internet, much the same way Google indexes websites available elsewhere on the internet. They remove torrent links upon request, have you actually bothered emailing any of these sites to ask them to remove your torrent?

The Pirate Bay loves these guys

[feyhunde]

Go read http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php [thepiratebay.org]

Most of these sites aren't hosted in the US, or in countries that recognize torrents as being pirated material.

Re:new addition to pirate bay legal threats page ?

[trezor]

Yes. "Try before you buy" is such a horrible concept. I hope they get those pesky CD players out of the music stores soon. Personally I blame the music stores for bringing this absolutely irrefutable need for DRM.

Here's a hint: DRM only hastles legitemate customers, while the pirates get the full freedom. Leak once, pirate infinitely. And that's why DRM will never work.

Plus its called copyright infringement, not stealing. Tool.

Re:Shooting themselves in the foot

[jackjeff]

In France for instance it is the case :) At the same moment the government is about to vote the controversial DADVSI law (that some nickname not without reason the "Vivendi-Unversal Studio" law). One of the goal of this law is to suppress the right French ppl have had so far to make a private copy for personal usage of DVDs (they don't suppress for audio CDs though... go figure.. :). So far you have had the right to transfer the videos from the DVD you bought into your iPod (even though you have to hack the DVD protection for that), make a DVD copy of Nemo (in case the kids destroy the original), etc... This also has legitimated the royalites the movie industry gets from the tax on storage devices (CDs, DVDs, Hard Disks, USB keys, iPods, etc... ) And of course they wish to remove the possibility to make copies but WITHOUT SUPRESSING THE TAX AND THE ROYALTIES to the movie industry!! This law was planned to be voted by night on Dec 23rd (yeah, no joke!!), but some congressmen rebelled and added amendments to legalize p2p instead and drag media and public attention to this "hidden" law, planned to be voted in secret on christmas eve. I don't think the law will hellp their decreasing profits (on the contrary), but it will harm our economy for sure... Now... maybe if they made it attractive to "buy" things.. like no fucking DRM, cheaper fees, ppl would actually buy more and they'd make money out of it :) Who would bother dowbload a movie of bad quality on a P2P network and wait days or weeks, while you could buy it for 5 bucks, of better quality, without DRM, and with a faster d/l ?!! But apprently the trend is to double the fee for the next generation DVDs.... they don't get it yet... go on like that and you will file for bankrucpcy and jail half your customers :)

Re:I'll get modded troll

[W2k]

you have to hunt real hard to find out what the hoopla is all about.

No, you have to type "Mohammed" into Google, and it's on the first page. Better yet, type "Mohammed caricatures" and you get several pages of links. That's not "hunting real hard", that's something even a school kid could do.

Re:Shooting themselves in the foot

[DeeKayWon]

First, the Canadian Music Industry said "Well, we can't stop online pirating, so we will propose a bill to tax all blank media", which basically included everything from hard-drive, USB sticks, and, of course, blank CDs and DVDs. The bill was passed and the levy went into effect.

Of the four storage media you list, only one has the levy applied to it — blank CDs. The levy applies to "blank audio recording media", and according to the way they define that, hard drives, USB sticks and blank DVDs are not affected. At one point, the Copyright Board [cb-cda.gc.ca], who decides what media have the levy applied, applied it to portable digital audio players, but the courts struck that down.

About a year later, they said "Well, we *can* stop online piracy, so we will propose a bill that makes it illegal and we will make additional income from legal bullying and litigation".

My biggest problem with that, is that they "forgot" to remove the levy. So now, file-sharing is basically illegal...

Wait, wait, wait. Lost somewhere in your story is the point at which the bill you refer to (bill C-60, I presume) became law. And bill C-60 has not become law. So I don't know what you're on about.

Clarifications from isoHunt.com / TorrentBox.com

[AmVidia HQ]

This is IH from isoHunt.com. We also run TorrentBox.com. Some clarifications for comments here:

  * Yes, this is MPAA's FUD. The lawsuit included.
  * No, BitTorrent and P2P are not illegal (yet). They are not solely tools of thieves as the MPAA like to portray them as. There are many legal torrents in isoHunt's search index.
  * No, I haven't got anything from MPAA about this lawsuit of theirs, but the press release is real and we are working with other sites, sued or yet to be sued, and the EFF on this.
  * This is significant as they are suing search engines. isoHunt.com is a search engine. It does not discriminate, it index by algorithm. If we can, we'll be pulling in Google and Yahoo to say a few words that search engines are not illegal (yet).
  * No, I'm not a crook. I see P2P as the new VCR, and I intend on proving that P2P can be used to the benefit of content creators, as a cheap and global vehicle for distribution and promotion.

Read more and comment on my forum announcement if you like:
http://isohunt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38933 [isohunt.com]