File-sharing website, Hotfile, has been ordered by the US District Court of Southern District of Florida to cease operations and pay about $80 million in damages for settling the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the Motion Picture Association of America.
The lawsuit which began in early 2011 finally reached judgement today ending MPAA's litigation against the website and its Florida-based founder, Anton Titov. It was reported recently by TorrentFreak, that MPAA was seeking about $500 million in damages from Hotfile, but the court has awarded $80 million in damages to the various movie studios affected by the content shared on the website. Additionally, the site has been ordered to shutdown unless they implement a copyright filtering mechanism for the uploaded content to prevent future infringements.
Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America said that, “Sites like Hotfile that illegally profit off of the creativity and hard work of others do a serious disservice to audiences, who deserve high-quality, legitimate viewing experiences online.”
According to MPAA's press release, Hotfile was found to be the most trafficked infringing website on the internet by the Court in August 2013 and rejected the site's "Safe Harbor" defense under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This case is first of its kind to hold a content locker liable for infringing business practices by a US Court.
Source: GigaOM | Image via ShutterStock
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