MPAA wins $110 mil in Torrent Spy suit

Dan Glickman: 'A clear victory for the studios'

By Leslie Simmons
Last month, TorrentSpy bit the dust, shuttering its peer-to-peer file-sharing site, and now a federal judge has ordered the company to pay the MPAA $110 million for infringement of thousands of copyrighted film and TV shows.

In a four-page final ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper entered the multimillion-dollar judgment against TorrentSpy parent company, Valence Media, for willfully inducing, contributing and vicariously allowing copyright infringement on its Web site.

Cooper also issued a permanent injunction against the Web site, which shut down March 24.

"The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile," the message reads.

The MPAA filed suit against TorrentSpy in February 2006, claiming that the site's torrent files were illegally uploaded.

"This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of these sites," MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said. "The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios."

Whether the MPAA will collect the $110 million from TorrentSpy remains to be seen. Court records show Valence and TorrentSpy principles Justin Bunnell and Wes Parker have filed for bankruptcy.

MPAA wins $110 mil in Torrent Spy suit

Dan Glickman: 'A clear victory for the studios'

By Leslie Simmons
Last month, TorrentSpy bit the dust, shuttering its peer-to-peer file-sharing site, and now a federal judge has ordered the company to pay the MPAA $110 million for infringement of thousands of copyrighted film and TV shows.

In a four-page final ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper entered the multimillion-dollar judgment against TorrentSpy parent company, Valence Media, for willfully inducing, contributing and vicariously allowing copyright infringement on its Web site.

Cooper also issued a permanent injunction against the Web site, which shut down March 24.

"The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile," the message reads.

The MPAA filed suit against TorrentSpy in February 2006, claiming that the site's torrent files were illegally uploaded.

"This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of these sites," MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said. "The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios."

Whether the MPAA will collect the $110 million from TorrentSpy remains to be seen. Court records show Valence and TorrentSpy principles Justin Bunnell and Wes Parker have filed for bankruptcy.

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DENVER -- New figures from NPD Group suggest that the Amazon DRM-free digital music service is doing more to grow the overall digital music market as opposed to simply stealing customers from iTunes.

The research group says only 10% of Amazon customers had previously bought music from Apple's iTunes service. While many tagged the Amazon service as an "iTunes killer" when it first launched, the music industry's hope all along was never to cannibalize iTunes sales but rather encourage new digital buyers. NPD's data suggest exactly that is happening.

"The fact that Amazon's early growth does not appear to be at the expense of Apple iTunes is a healthy indication that the digital music customer pool can expand into new consumer groups who have not yet joined the iTunes community," said NPD analyst Russ Crupnick in a statement.

NPD says Amazon is now second only to iTunes in the a la carte digital download category (for those keeping score). The company did not disclose how many users Amazon has attracted in total, however it did say iTunes volume is 10 times that of Amazon.

Some interesting demographic breakdown has emerged between the two services as well. NPD says 84% of Amazon customers are male, compared to 44% of iTunes, but only 3% of Amazon customers were teens, compared to iTunes' 18% (the latter attributed primarily to the popularity of iTunes gift cards.)

NPD says Amazon's growth is likely more due to existing Amazon customers adopting the new service rather than due its lower pricing or DRM-free policies.

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