Torrentspy argues it cannot be held liable for actions of visitors once they leave its Web site.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) might just as well have sued Google for copyright violation rather than pick on Torrentspy, the smaller company said in a court filing this week seeking dismissal of the case.
In February, the MPAA filed seven lawsuits against Torrentspy and other search companies that help visitors find content or instruct them how to download it. It was the first time that the MPAA had charged such companies with copyright infringement.
The MPAA thinks that showing punters where Torrents to pirated software are; is the same thing as copyright infringement.
In its filing seeking to dismiss the case, Torrentspy argued that the MPAA might as well have sued Google, since Google does what Torrentspy does, only better. Torrentspy is a search engine that helps visitors finds torrent files, which are often music or movie files stored in an easily shared file format.
Lawyers for Torrentspy say the lawsuit is an attempt to make the BitTorrent system itself illegal.
People use BitTorrent as a way of downloading content, often illegally sharing copyrighted material. Torrentspy said that its site does not contain any copyright works or links to copyright works, does not promote copyright infringement and cannot be held liable for the actions of visitors once they leave its Web site.
BitTorrent has become a widely used online system to get hold of very large video files as the technology is very efficient at splitting up and sharing data.
Use of the technology has proved to be a thorn in the side of the MPAA as it can make it hard to work out who is behind illegal movie sharing.
"There is nothing alleged to distinguish defendants’ website from that maintained by Google," Torrentspy said in its filing. "Everything alleged about defendants’ website is true about Google, and even more so, because Google outperforms the allegations in the complaint," the filing reads.
Links Issue:
As part of its efforts to tackle the issue, the MPAA has targeted websites which point to BitTorrent links such as Torrentspy.
Torrentspy stands accused of helping copyright infringement to occur by directing people to sites, some of which host copyrighted content which can be downloaded illegally.
The MPAA is in essence trying to outlaw the .torrent file format Ira Rothken, Torrentspy lawyer said. In response, Torrentspy has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in the federal court in Los Angeles.
It challenges that the allegation made by the MPAA that linking to torrent sites constituted secondary copyright infringement.
Mr. Rothken said the motion argued that Torrentspy does not link to Hollywood’s copyrighted works. He said Torrentspy had cooperated with Hollywood in removing objectionable links to torrent files and did not actively promote copyright infringement.
It cannot be held ‘tertiary’ liable for visitors’ conduct that occurs away from its web search engine, said Mr Rothken.
He said the MPAA’s charges against Torrentspy go beyond the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion against Grokster, Torrentspy said. In that decision, the Supreme Court ruled that someone who offers a tool and promotes the use of that tool to infringe copyrights is liable for the user’s infringement.
Grokster shut down after the decision was made and other peer-to-peer file sharing sites also closed or began to discuss changes in their business models to avoid running foul of the Supreme Court ruling.
When the MPAA filed its suits against the seven companies in February, it said it aimed to shut down major pirate networks by thwarting their supply of illegal material and their means of distribution.
However saying Google does the same thing better might not be a defense. The briefs of the MPAA might have that company in its sights next.
US Lawsuits:
This is the latest legal twist in the ongoing conflict between media industries and the peer-to-peer sharing community.
It targeted 2,100 alleged up-loaders using file-sharing networks in 16 nations including the UK, France, Germany and Italy. File-sharers in Switzerland, Sweden, Argentina, Singapore and Hong Kong were also facing cases.
Thousands of people have agreed to pay compensation since the campaign began.
In November last year, the global recording industry launched its largest wave of legal action against people suspected of sharing music files on the internet.
The number of cases brought by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) outside the US since March 2004 now stands at more than 3,800.
In the US, civil lawsuits have been brought against more than 15,597 people since September 2003 and there have been at least 3,590 settlements.
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.