Judge Orders TorrentSpy To Pay MPAA $110M In Damages

Boston (dbTechno) - U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper has ruled that TorrentSpy, a BitTorrent tracking site, must pay $110 million to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for copyright infringement.

TorrentSpy was a U.S.-based torrent tracking service.

This part March, it was forced to shut down when it lost its case against the MPAA.

TorrentSpy defaulted as it could not produce internal records to avoid being at fault.

The federal judge ruled in Los Angeles that TorrentSpy must pay the MPAA the maximum of $30,000 for each of the 3,699 infringements of copyrighted works.

This totals out to the largest fines in copyright history.

MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman put out a statement saying “This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of these sites.”

“The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders.”

The judge has ordered that TorrentSpy stay permanently shut down.