TorrentSpy ordered to pay $110m damages

[Lemurion]

A proportionate fine would be much more appropriate. I also think that many of the RIAA and MPAA's tactics are not well thought out as all too often they come across as the heavies when they are doing their jobs.

It may be perception, but the idea that always comes across is that they're treating file-sharers as harshly as those who print illegal CD and DVD copies. They're not the same offense.

[mores]

Originally Posted by Adam B.

They might as well have fined them "Eleventy Billion Dollars".

Some might not know: in mathematics, eleventy billion is the formal name for the number "infinity plus 17"!

[GeoffC]

Despite the rights or wrongs , no - one appears to have criticised the ISPs who allowed the traffic to pass , nor the end users who wanted access to the products Torrentspy were offering ..

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Despite the rights or wrongs , no - one appears to have criticised the ISPs who allowed the traffic to pass , nor the end users who wanted access to the products Torrentspy were offering ..

ISP's should have any control over what data passes through their network. They should be carriers of the data, nothing more. If I pay for an unlmited 10 Megabit connection, they should let me access whatever I want up to that connection speed.

I'm a big fan of Net Neutrality and anti traffic shaping and content filtering. ISP's take way too many liberties with the data going through their pipes.

[nesagwa]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Despite the rights or wrongs , no - one appears to have criticised the ISPs who allowed the traffic to pass , nor the end users who wanted access to the products Torrentspy were offering ..

Or the fact that you can find all of this on Google and just about any other search engine easily with much more results than any single site.

Do they get charged for facilitation? Heck no.

How is it different I ask?

[Steve Jordan]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

A proportionate fine would be much more appropriate. I also think that many of the RIAA and MPAA's tactics are not well thought out as all too often they come across as the heavies when they are doing their jobs.

I think it's the punishments that largely do that... akin to a policeman confiscating your car because you were driving 15MPH over the speed limit. Of course, a more accurate parallel (to them) may be driving 100MPH above the speed limit, in which case, confiscation would seem appropriate... It's always a matter of perceived degree of the offense.

I'm sure that at some point the courts will re-evaluate the idea of a "reasonable fine" for these charges, one that can be enough of a deterrent without being inane. That would, I think, also make it easier to standardize the system so the legal process can be simplified. The only question is how soon?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by nesagwa

Or the fact that you can find all of this on Google and just about any other search engine easily with much more results than any single site.

Do they get charged for facilitation? Heck no.

How is it different I ask?

This is very true. Google are putting up links to illegal material just as wrong as Torrent Spy.

[HarryT]

If a system has a "significant non-infringing use" then it's OK. If its sole purpose is to facilitate copyright infringement, it's not. That was the finding of the US Supreme Court in the famous "Sony Corp. v. Universal Studies" case when Universal Studios attempted to prevent the sale of video recorders on the grounds that they could be used to infringe copyright. The Court ruled that video recorders were OK because they could be used for things other than infringing copyright, and this legal principle has subsequently been applied to many other things, including to software and websites such as Google.

[pieter]

Congratulations somehow seem in order (hence the thumbs up?).

But with what? That justice has been served?

The lives of a couple people are probably ruined. (though I have no idea just how paying 110 million in damages would work out in reality)
The small percentage of the money that they manage to actually pay in damages will probably never see the hands of any of the creators of the shared works.
In the years that they were sueing TorrentSpy, at least twenty new torrent-search-sites have come into being, distributing way more than torrent spy ever did.

yup, congratulations are in order. Justice has been served.
Now if only we could make all the ISP's filter, listen in, read, and control all of our internet traffic, and sue everybody for some more billions, the world would be a much better place.

[JAcheson]

Instead of levying huge fines that will most likely never be paid, I would prefer to see them get hit with long-term community service.

110 million is such a gargantuan sum that it is meaningless as a deterrent. But nobody wants to end up spending their Saturdays cleaning the side of the highway for the next 15 years.

[MaggieScratch]

I'd like to see the studios get the message that consumers want better solutions and that's one of the big reasons why they use TorrentSpy and similar services.

Of course, there always will be people who want it for free. But if they make it easy and cheap to purchase media legally, it will encourage consumers to use the legal methods rather than the illegal ones. The old cliche is true--you get more flies with honey than with vinegar. Put good solutions in place for consumers, THEN go after the pirates.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by pieter

Now if only we could make all the ISP's filter, listen in, read, and control all of our internet traffic, and sue everybody for some more billions, the world would be a much better place.

As far as I know, it's not possible. The key problem lies in interpreting those streams of bytes - the intermediaries have no idea what information they carry. And since they can be encrypted with algorithms currently practically unbreakable, I don't envision the ISPs being able to do it ever.

There was a thread about this here, but I'm not good enough at finding threads at forums to link it :/

[TadW]

Originally Posted by mores

Some might not know: in mathematics, eleventy billion is the formal name for the number "infinity plus 17"!

Ahh and I kept scratching my head what Adam meant by it.

[GeoffC]

Of importance , does Torrentspy have $110m - did they charge for these downloads - or was it all paid for by adverts .
If the latter , then aren't the advertisers liable too ?

[TadW]

If I understood the case right, they didn't get convicted on base of file-sharing but because they destroyed the evidence (server logs). No?