LokiTorrent, the only website that was willing to stay up after receiving its lawsuit and battle the MPAA has been shut down by court order. While the website operator had agreed to pay the large settlement, they were ordered to provide the MPAA with access to all their logs and server data relating to its BitTorrent service, thus giving the MPAA a list of those who have used LokiTorrent to illegally distribute its content.
While LokiTorrent managed to raise over $40,000 from its users, it is not clear how much of this (if all of it) went to the MPAA. Now all that remains on LokiTorrent's website is the MPAA's "You can click but you can't hide..." warning. Jack used our news submit to let us know about the following news:
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A notice from the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has gone up on LokiTorrent, saying a court order has grounded the site. "You can click but you can't hide," the notice reads. "There are websites that provide legal downloads. This is not one of them." The site's operator gave into the MPAA despite vowing to fight the studios with other people's money. "The operator of that site, Edward Webber, agreed to not only pay a substantial settlement with even greater financial penalties for any further such actions, but by Court Order must provide the MPAA with access to and copies of all logs and server data related to his illegal BitTorrent activities, which will provide a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities," the MPAA said in a statement. LokiTorrent had been one of the only major BitTorrent hubs to stay up and running after the MPAA sent out a flood of lawsuits. The hubs serve as meeting grounds for file-traders looking to pick up software, music, movies and other content. LokiTorrent had raised more than $40,000 from its fan base to help its legal battle against the MPAA. It's unclear if that money went straight to the MPAA. LokiTorrent has not responded to a request for comment. The Loki shutdown comes as the MPAA filed a second round of lawsuits against BitTorrent and eDonkey site operators. Netcraft earlier today reported that LokiTorrent went offline - apparently just the MPAA took it over. |
As BitTorrent relies on centralised torrent tracking websites to run, it looks like the MPAA's lawsuit campaign is set to continue against Torrent tracking websites that track copyrighted content, in a similar way to how the RIAA goes after individual copyright infringing users.
Feel free to discuss and find out more about the file sharing networks and relating legal issues on our Music Downloads, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: The Register
