Edward Webber, owner of the web site, was ordered by a Dallas court to pay a fine to settle the lawsuit, which accused LokiTorrent of downloading copies of copyrighted films using torrents, a peer-to-peer technology that allows users to share portions of a movie file online.
As part of the ruling, the MPAA also received copies of Webber’s computer server logs and data relating to his illegal activities with a warning: You can click, but you can’t hide.
The ruling comes after it was reported that Webber had put up the site for sale, in a strategic move which he has since claimed was a stunt to discover the potential value of the site.
LokiTorrent is the latest in a long line of targeted illegal traders against whom the MPAA has filed lawsuits since December, with computer servers in Austria, France, the Netherlands and Finland the first to be attacked. Next up are the US and Europe, where Hollywood studios will continue putting the heat on sites that host indexes for torrent platforms such as BitTorrent, eDonkey and DirectConnect.
