Taken straight from their front page: Hello Friends of TorrentSpy, This message is to inform you about recent efforts by the motion picture studios to shut down TorrentSpy. As you may know, in February 2006 the major movie studios and their Washington lobby, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), filed a lawsuit against TorrentSpy and other search engines. We guess that hiring hackers and turning a blind eye to identity theft is not enough for the movie studios and the MPAA. Now they want to know who you are, what you search for, and what you download. In short, it is the view of the movie studios that websites should not allow anonymous use and your activity on the Internet - anywhere - is their business. The really scarry thing is that if we lose this court battle, the movie studios will be able to go after any search engine or website and force them to collect data about YOU. It is not an exaggeration to say that losing this fight is a nail in the Internet's coffin. We have spent the last year challenging their relentless campaign against the 1st Amendment and personal privacy laws Worldwide. We have succeeded in delaying the court order to turn on logs while we appeal it. TorrentSpy will not create logs of what you do on the site without your consent. While we use Google Analytics for website statistics, TorrentSpy servers have never tracked your IP Address, the searches you make, or how you use the site. We are dedicated to your privacy and we are fighting for your rights! MPAA is really starting to get a little crazy.... go to TorrentSpy to actually find the links to their other articles about the MPAA hiring a hacker to steal information, etc... What do you guys think? If this goes through, it will certainly affect the world of piracy (until a TorrentSpy clone is made )
nooooooo, beloved torrentspy!!!!! damm u mpaa, damn u to hell! can i still use it anonymously if i use a proxy?
Hmm.. Does this mean that persons who use torrentspy can be found by the "police" and held charges against them? A 16 years old kid from Norway uploaded a movie, and got app. 100,000$ in penalty for that ONE movie.. but it is more risky to upload than to download right? Tuppen^^
If they don't record your IP it's going to be pretty hard to find you. Even if they did, it's pretty dodgey, an IP address isn't good evidence against you and Torrentspy hosts legal downloads too. Torrentspy is hosted in the Netherlands but the owner is in the USA.
I guess that depends where you live. If I remember correctly, Belgian law used to (they changed it, I think) say that if people didn't offer it, you wouldn't be able to download it... so downloading was alright, uploading/hosting wasn't. But there's also something as "good faith". If you buy something in "good faith" you trust that what you buy is legal, and not stolen. If it later turns out it's a stolen item, then you yourself aren't sued but the guy you got it from is (and so on if he got it "in good faith"). However, downloading a movie through a torrent or IRC is rather obviously not legal, so it is assumed you know that and you can be sued. But again, that would depend on your own local laws, or international laws if they ever get cracking on those.
The MPAA is now trying to prove that data stored in RAM counts as already existing data and that can be used instead of newly created log files.
Exactly. And if TorrentSpy hasn't been lieing this whole time, they won't have that information. But like was said earlier, another torrent website will rise in it's place if this law suit goes through. Although, in my opinion, TorrentSpy is by far the best site out there for torrents, so I will miss it.
I think they can win this lawsuit, because of the HUGE violation of privacy that the MPAA is trying to impose. Although, I suppose that the MPAA will pull some strings if they really want to win this. Either way, I've got my fingers crossed TorrentSpy will win. Edit: I thought of the irony of this. Since TorrentSpy posts about possibly shutting down, people who like the site (like myself) go to download whatever they want/can get before the site goes down. I can see the MPAA fuming over this memo: Internet piracy increases 500%.
lol even if they lose, it's going to be appealed and the mpaa is going to lose because its a violation of the 1st and 5th amendment to the US constitution. How can you be expected to be forced to set up logs when it's not on by default and if you did it would incriminate you? isn't that called entrapment or something like that?
It's going to be similar to the napster situation, just this time it's just one of many services that people use. Organisations like the MPAA will slowly take them all down one by one and one day all illicit activity will be done through servers on boats and islands in international waters to avoid the MPAA's logs. Piracy will return to the high seas.
