Webmaster, Internet & Tech Blog

Torrentspy lost their case against MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America) that was filed last year claiming that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) had hacked into their systems to gain email addresses that belonged to the executives of Torrentspy. Although they had lost their case, the MPAA did confess that they had paid someone $15,000 to deliver the addresses to them anyway, clearly a red flag. The MPAA for many years now have been trying to shut down the major websites such as Torrentspy who they claim (along with other similar sites) cost them over $2 Billion dollars a year in revenue. A $15,000 bribe isn’t a big price compared to that number. Although Torrentspy encourages its members to not download illegal material, it still continues and the MPAA will continue to try and defeat their adversary.

The MPAA sets itself a long entailing job of trying to track down users of torrent websites, such as TorrentSpy. In one case Shawn Hogan, owner of Digital Point Forums, received a phone call from the MPAA accusing him of downloading a movie off a torrent website (which was not true) and was told to pay a fine of $2,500 or he’ll be taken to court. Ironically, it was a movie that he actually owns on DVD. Shawn did not give into their scare tactic and told the lady on the phone to stick it. Shawn was not afraid to go to court as far as expenses go, as he’s made millions from programming and he wants to stick up for the innocent web community. The MPAA has claimed around $50million from catching downloaders. Though this raises the question of are their tactics of tracking down these people legal? And in the world of Wifi, a lot of people may be wrongly accused.