The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is a powerful tool for both ISPs and copyright holders. While it protects ISPs from being sued, it also gives copyright holders the right to inform ISPs that infringing material exists on their servers. ISPs are then obligated to remove such material.

Although some consider torrent files to exist in a gray area when it comes to the copyright law, it appears the copyright industry has the support of the U.S. government in its enforcement efforts. This proved to be the case today as TorrentSpy.com was compelled by the DMCA to remove any and all references to "Star Wars" from its indexing services.

Upon searching for Star Wars, one is confronted with the following message:

"There has been an error with your search"

"This search query has been blocked at the request of the copyright holder, in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA")"

Compared to EliteTorrents.org, it appears TorrentSpy.com is being treated with considerable leniency. This appears to be a tactical maneuver by the MPAA, as EliteTorrents.org was most likely used as an example. Now that all other torrent administrators realize the severity of the situation, expect the remaining sites to quickly fall in line.

This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
BitTorrent :: Trackers/Indexers
Unauthorized Distribution :: Digital Piracy

TorrentSpy Homepage.

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