Bankrupt, voluntarily closed, Torrentspy whacked with $111 million judgment

Ira Rothken promises an appeal, and said the case wasn't decided on the merits and should not be used as a precendent in any other cases. "What is really going on here is a Hollywood public-relations stunt," Rothken said. "The reason for the size of the judgment was so a bunch of news organizations would write that 'a $100 million judgment was issued against a bunch of pirates' when, in fact, it was declared against a company with no appreciable assets that has already declared bankruptcy."

Rothken characterized the judge's action as an "abuse of discretion", with an element of grandstanding in the large fine made against a company with no assets available to pay such a fine.

Comments

• I really hope that [TorrentSpy]Create? sticks it to the MPAA in this case. They should also bring up the argument that they are not going after Google, who is a MUCH bigger blip on the radar in finding illegal stuff than [TorrentSpy]Create? is. Whether or not the MPAA wants to recognize it, they are doing illegal things by only going after ONE person who helps to infringe on their copyright and not another. The law SPECIFICALLY says that it has to be applied the same to ALL people and corporations, so why should this be any different?
• I have a Google search bar on my website so if you type in say - ironman torrent it will give you a list of place to download the movie. So can the MPAA sure me for $100 million as my site does a similar thing as torrent spy - if they can sue me they can use maybe a million or so other sites that have search

Sources:

• http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9939000-7.html
• http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/05/08/torrentspy-hit-with-111-million-fine-for-copyright-violation/
• http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/torrentspy-ding.html