TorrentSpy ordered to keep user details

August 30, 2007 – A US federal judge has upheld a previous ruling ordering TorrentSpy, a popular BitTorrent indexing website, to retain records of its server logs, opening the way for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to obtain the IP addresses of users infringing copyright law and file charges against them.

TorrentSpy has reportedly decided to block US resident access in an attempt to hinder this development, but current speculation suggests that further litigation could end this policy.  In a previous suit filed by the MPAA, TorrentSpy argued – unsuccessfully – that as its servers are physically located in the Netherlands, Dutch privacy laws prevented it from recording any personal information about its users.

In her latest ruling, the judge declared that “the Court notes that this decision does not impose an additional burden on any website operator or party outside of this case.  It simply requires that the defendants in this case, as part of this litigation… begin preserving and subsequently produce a particular subset of the data in RAM under Defendants’ control.”