Torrent Spy's Demise-Quick Resurrection

One of the most popular torrent search engines, TorrentSpy, has met it's end. Officially having closed on March 24, 2008. The pressure from privacy laws, constant threats of lawsuits and other various infringements on the law took their toll. Recently in February of 2007 TorrentSpy was sued by Motion Pictures of America for typical copyright infringement, only the latest of a long line of problems with various companies. TorrentSpy was an online search engine for P2P programs that use data on the torrents to locate files from other users to be downloaded. These types of programs are most commonly used for sharing pirated software, videos, operating systems, and much more.

Although only one pawn in a mass of other engines, TorrentSpy was a large leader in torrent sharing. The business of hosting these types of files constantly places pirating websites in the cross hairs. Even if they are not the specific target of a lawsuit other victims will commonly point the finger towards these services. The cycle will continue until stricter laws are put into place by the US and various other countries to control websites that promote pirating.


The cycle can be be seen by observing a former employee of TorrentSpy, Jason Hughes. Who did not hesitate in starting his own torrent website, movietorrents.info, shortly after the end of TorrentSpy. Apparently the revenue from this type of website is worth all of the hastle and large amounts of media attention for those out for money.