Search engine swept up in Spy game

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A federal magistrate’s order passed in a US copyright infringement case has inflamed advocates of online freedom. Ruling on Columbia Pictures Industries v Bunnell, in which the film studio is suing the defendant’s TorrentSpy website, the magistrate ordered that all users’ ISP details should be logged and handed over to the plaintiff. TorrentSpy, a search engine that indexes items traded on BitTorrent – the popular film and TV file-sharing service – had never kept records of its visitors’ data before. Since the case began in February 2006, Columbia has argued that TorrentSpy is a gateway for people to access illegal copies of its films.

On 22 June, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the Californian district court to reverse the magistrate’s ruling. Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry said: ‘This unprecedented ruling has implications well beyond the file sharing context. Giving litigants the power to rewrite their opponent's privacy policies poses a risk to all Internet users.’

Bunnell’s law firm, Rothken LLP, had already made a representation against the order to the California court on 12 June. In a Memorandum of Points and Authorities supporting their client’s objections to the ruling, the firm argued: ‘Through the Magistrate Judge's Order, Plaintiffs will obtain control of Defendants’ website, Plaintiffs will monitor the activity of Defendants’ website, Plaintiffs will invade the privacy of Defendants’ visitors and Plaintiffs will chill Free Speech on the Internet without any finding that Defendants did anything wrong, or that its DMCA policy was ineffective, or the provision of a bond.

‘No doubt Plaintiffs foresee additional victories in the Final Decree that will multiply their present advantages and complete the subjugation of Defendants’ formerly independent website; but everything they really want will already have been obtained.’

EFF Senior Attorney Fred von Lohmann said: ‘In the analog world, a court would never think to force a company to record telephone calls, transcribe employee conversations, or log other ephemeral information. There is no reason why the rules should be different simply because a company uses digital technologies.’