BitTorrent Loyalists Donate Cash To Fight MPAA

A call for financial support by the operator of a BitTorrent server that's been targeted by the motion picture industry as a hub for pirated films has achieved initial success .

Edward Webber, operator of Loki Torrent, posted a plea for money at his Web site last week to fight a lawsuit slapped on his outfit by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which claims Webber's site provides links to purloined movies through the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing network.

According to information posted at Webber's site, he needs US$30,000 a month to pay lawyers to defend Loki Torrent from the MPAA. As of this morning, Webber, who is collecting donations via PayPal, had exceeded his first month's goal for his defense fund, raising more than $33,000.

Landmark Case?

"Loki Torrent is fighting for your rights to freely share on the Internet," Webber contends on his Web site.

"The MPAA is a large organization and this battle will not likely be easily won, even knowing that we are in the right," he continues. "They have deep pockets and many attorneys and we are not a large corporation. We are one site taking the risk of standing up for everyone's rights."

"This is looking to be a landmark case concerning your rights on the Internet," he adds, "and we need to be able to fight them through [to] victory."

Expensive Litigation

Fred von Lohmann, who, as a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, knows a thing or two about trading briefs in court with the likes of the MPAA and their music industry counterpart, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), praised Loki Torrent's efforts. "It's a very impressive effort, and it speaks to the fact that Torrent users have a very strong sense of community," he told TechNewsWorld.

Nevertheless, Webber might be assuming a Sisyphean burden by going it alone against the MPAA. "You have to realize just how expensive lawsuits are in our civil system," von Lohmann observed. "Last time I checked, they had raised $28,000. That wouldn't be enough money to see you through even the preliminary stages of a civil suit, much less all the way to trial."

But the MPAA might not be looking to go to trial. It might angle to settle its cases out of court. Under those circumstances, it will be interesting to see the size of the settlements sought by the organization, von Lohmann noted. "In the recording industry lawsuits, they obviously chose numbers that were low enough that it really didn't make any sense to fight," he said.

"If the MPAA offered the guy at Loki Torrent a settlement number that was equal or less than the amount of money he's raised so far, it might be very difficult for him to decide to fight, knowing it would cost him more to defend himself whether he won or not."

Not Looking for Settlement

Thus far, the MPAA hasn't dangled any settlement terms in front of Loki Torrent, Webber told TechNewsWorld via e-mail. "The only settlement we see in the future is the MPAA dropping their case."

Attempts to reach the MPAA by TechNewsWorld for comment were unavailing.

Although the most recent wave of lawsuits by the MPAA suggests irreconcilable differences between the entertainment industry and the P2P community, there are those who believe the groups will find mutually beneficial ground.

Big Bets on P2P

"It's time for the entertainment companies to embrace the noninfringing uses of P2P," Travis Kalanick, CEO of Red Swoosh, an online entertainment content deliverer based in El Segundo, California, said.

"There is no need to make a particular kind of technology to be the villain," argued Kalanick, the former operator of Scour, a Napster-era file sharing network sued into oblivion in 2000 by the entertainment industry.

"If they [the entertainment industry] want infringement and piracy to subside, the best thing that they can do is start to embrace the noninfringing uses of the technology," he said.

"What you will see in 2005," he predicted, "is that the big technology companies are going to make huge bets on P2P because everybody gets it now. They understand the power of P2P and what that means for a very low cost, very broad selection, on-demand media experience."