BitTorrent uses the P2P architecture but build upon it while
blurring the already unclear legal lines.
The growth in the popularity
of the BitTorrent protocol has lead to bandwidth limitations by ISPs,
and legal action from the MPAA.
With that said, it should come as no surprise that TorrentSpy,
a
popular torrent search directory, has now begun to block all searches
originating from within the United States.
The service was named in the February 2006 lawsuit by the
Motion Picture Association, but it was not until this
June
when the tension started building.
That’s when a federal judge ordered
the site to begin tracking users as possible evidence in “a copyright
infringement lawsuit filed by a handful of movie studios and the MPAA.“
The World’s Most Visited Torrent Site
In the MPAA report, TorrentSpy was described as “the
world’s
most-visited site for obtaining infringing content using Torrent
software.“
After hearing the news, TorrentSpy
stated in a court filing that “The Motion Picture Association
of America (MPAA) might just as well have sued Google Inc. for
copyright violation rather than pick on [us].”
Ira Rothken, the lawyer for TorrentSpy, mentioned that he was
determined to fight for the company but also stated
that “the odds favor the copyright owners,
copyright law in this country is Draconian and dramatically skewed on
the owner’s side”.
Now, US users who try to search using the website are directed
to a privacy
message. Instead of receiving results when I performed a
simple search, I was directed to a page with the following statement:
Sorry, but because you are located in the USA you cannot
use the search features of the Torrentspy.com website.Torrentspy’s
decision to stop accepting US visitors was NOT compelled by any Court
but rather an uncertain legal climate in the US regarding user privacy
and an apparent tension between US and European Union privacy laws.
Not Compelled By Any Court?
I am not quite sure that I believe the line about it not being
“compelled by any court.” I am pretty certain that the thought of being
implicated on infringement charges played a factor in this recent
decision.
Ars
Technica
believes that “this latest development in the TorrentSpy drama throws
the logging requirement back in the MPAA’s face. If the MPAA wants its
logs, it can have them—good luck finding any information that
it can
actually use!”
I wonder if TorrentSpy will experience any noticeable drop in
traffic now? Will this news work for or against TorrentSpy in its case
versus the MPAA?
Michael Garrett is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
