by Playfuls Staff |
29th March 2006
Recently, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed seven copyright-related lawsuits against Torrentspy and other such search companies, claiming that they help visitors find illegal content on the Internet and provide instructions on how to download it. [more]
In reply, Torrentspy said that they are only providing a search engine and not the illegal content itself and that MPAA might have as well sued Google, who even does a better job.
The company also filed a Motion to Dismiss MPAA's accusations which claimed that providing those links to torrent files can constitute secondary copyright infringement.
"Torrentspy has filed a Motion to Dismiss the federal lawsuit on Monday arguing, amongst other things, that it does not link to Hollywood's copyrighted works, it has cooperated with Hollywood in removing objectionable links to dot torrent files, it does not actively promote copyright infringement, and it cannot be held 'tertiary' liable for visitors' conduct that occurs away from its web search engine", said Ira P. Rothken, the defendants' attorney.
"The MPAA, in my view, is going way beyond the Supreme Court's recent Grokster opinion. This appears to be the first case where major Hollywood studios are suing a search engine that does not even link to any files copyrighted by Hollywood. The MPAA is in essence trying to outlaw the dot torrent file format", Rothken added.
A copy of the Motion to Dismiss the case can be found at
www.techfirm.com/mtdtorrentspy.pdf.
