MPAA Goes After BitTorret Trackers

from the makes-more-sense-than-BitTorrent-itself dept

While it did seem odd that the movie industry might go after BitTorrent's creator, it looks like they've chosen to go after those who track BitTorrent files, which at least makes a bit more sense, seeing as they're the sites that actually help people find unauthorized works (and, of course, authorized works as well). However, the legal standing may get confusing again. If these sites aren't actually hosting any unauthorized material, and are simply pointing people to where that material does reside, then you could easily argue that they're doing nothing illegal. Of course, the entertainment industry has shown no hesitation in the past about going after those who simply point to files but do no hosting themselves. In the meantime, just as the industry's decision to go after the original Napster created more distributed file sharing apps, the various tracking sites are all working on becoming more distributed themselves. Each move that the industry makes simply drives people to create systems that make it harder to track and find them -- and yet the industry still hasn't figured out they're making things worse for themselves with each legal step.