LOS ANGELES, CA — Universally despised by copyright owners, file-sharing network TorrentSpy may be its own worst enemy, as evidenced by the ruling filed in a U.S. District Court this week. The Motion Picture Association of America was handed an easy victory in its nearly two-year-old copyright-infringement lawsuit against the BitTorrent indexing service when a federal judge terminated the case after determining TorrentSpy’s operators intentionally tampered with — and in some cases destroyed — evidence.A termination ruling, which finds in favor of one party to a lawsuit while denying the other party an opportunity to mount its own case, is an extraordinarily harsh sanction. The only argument open to TorrentSpy at this point is over the amount of damages it will be assessed.
“[TorrentSpy’s] conduct during discovery in this case has been obstreperous,” Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote in her opinion. “They have engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence and have provided false testimony under oath in an effort to hide evidence of such destruction.”
Even after being fined $30,000 for violation of previous discovery orders, TorrentSpy continued to commit violations like modifying or deleting pointers to copyrighted content, obscuring users’ IP addresses, withholding forum moderators’ names and failing to keep server logs, according to court documents. TorrentSpy argued that its servers are located in The Netherlands, and Dutch law protects the privacy of its records.
Ira Rothken, the San Francisco-based attorney for TorrentSpy, called the court’s decision “draconian in nature and unfair,” saying he does not believe his clients intentionally destroyed any evidence. Instead, TorrentSpy preferred to err on the side of caution while protecting its users’ privacy. He said the company will appeal the decision.
In the meantime, TorrentSpy has blocked all access by U.S. users but will continue to operate internationally. Rothken said he does not believe a U.S. court can impact international operations. He also said the court’s ruling could have widespread privacy implications, as it may open a door to exposing internet users’ private information in other civil lawsuits.
The MPAA, however, applauded the ruling.
“The court’s decision … sends a potent message to future defendants that this egregious behavior will not be tolerated by the judicial system,” MPAA Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Antipiracy Operations John Malcolm said in a prepared statement. “The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content. TorrentSpy is a one-stop shop for copyright infringement.”
