The current round of TorrentSpy’s legal battle with the MPAA
has drawn
to a close, with a Los Angeles judge ending the case in favor of the MPAA.
U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper called the conduct
of defendants Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker, and parent company Valence
Media “obstreperous,” claiming that they destroyed server logs that were requested
as evidence to be used against them. “A substantial number of items of evidence
have been destroyed,” wrote Cooper, adding that the defendants “were on notice
that this information would be of importance to the case.”
In the lawsuit, Cooper found that TorrentSpy ignored a judicial order
to retain server logs which contained the IP addresses of its users; the MPAA
claimed that TorrentSpy witheld
evidence since at least June of this year. Defendants claimed the logs were
protected from being turned over by Dutch law as their servers are currently
hosted in the Netherlands.
In response, Cooper asked for information stored in the servers' RAM, which the defendants claimed was temporary in nature and therefore
impossible to retain.
Understandably frustrated, Cooper entered a default ruling
against TorrentSpy and its parent company of which the amount of damages has not
been set. TorrentSpy is expected to appeal on grounds that RAM should not be considered a physical log, but only a logical and unpreservable cache.
The MPAA originally
filed suit against TorrentSpy in February 2006 along with a flurry of complaints
against a variety of different BitTorrent trackers including Isohunt.com and
BTHub.com
TorrentSpy filed
a countersuit against the MPAA in May 2006, claiming that the MPAA violated
the federal Wiretap Act by purchasing
a cache of private e-mail pilfered by an ex-associate that had fallen out
with the site. Judge Cooper tossed the case out, ruling that the MPAA did not
expose itself to vicarious liability under the Wiretap Act – as TorrentSpy claimed
– by purchasing the e-mails from a third party; coincidentally TorrentSpy agreed not to sue the ex-associate in exchange for his cooperation in the countersuit.
In June, TorrentSpy began
blocking all American users from its site, in a move that would soon be
followed by similar
gestures from other trackers, including Isohunt and the
late Demonoid.com. TorrentSpy claimed it instituted the practice to protect
users' privacy due to an “uncertain
legal climate;” it could be inferred that they moved to protect US-based
users from discovery in its MPAA lawsuit.
The MPAA said its legal triumph was a “significant victory
for the major Hollywood studios.”
“The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to
facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content,” said
the MPAA’s director of worldwide anti-piracy and executive vice president John
Malcolm. “The court's decision is a significant victory for MPAA member
companies and sends a potent message to future defendants that this egregious
behavior will not be tolerated by the judicial system.”