James Delahunty
10 Feb 2005 23:53
BitTorrent trading site, LokiTorrent.com has been shut down by the Motion Picture Association of America. LokiTorrent was gathering a legal fee to battle an MPAA lawsuit and gathered about $40,000. The MPAA obtained a $1-million judgment against LokiTorrent. The owner of the site Edward Webber agreed to pay the MPAA a substantial fine, shut down the site and also agreed to hand over any logs of illegal user activity on the site.
"You can click but you can't hide" is the new title on the LokitTorrent.com homepage. Head of the MPAA's anti-piracy effort, John G. Malcolm was delighted with the result, especially that the MPAA were to obtain any logs of activity. "These records could lead investigators to tens of thousands of people who distributed and downloaded unauthorized copies of digital goods," he said. He claimed the site had more than 750,000 registered users and helped distribute more than 35,000 movies, songs and other items. The homepage of LokiTorrent goes on to spread more MPAA propaganda...
This website has been permanently shut down by court order because it facilitates the illegal downloading of copyrighted motion pictures. The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity. Illegally downloading movies from sites such as these without proper authorization violates the law, is theft, and is not anonymous. Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop.
The MPAA's efforts to date have resulted in a 40 percent reduction in the number of servers that continue to operate. One such site that will no longer exist is LokiTorrent--one of the largest BitTorrent host servers. 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.