Hollywood threatens to sue UK BitTorrent man for millions

March 17, 2005 D. H. McKee

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There are, however, a couple of factors that make Hanff’s story unique. For one, the US studios served Hanff papers at his home – in England. Secondly, Hanff, 31, owns the DVDR-Core domain name and pays for its server, but he has never actually administered the site. That’s done by a group of online friends that Hanff has never met in person. Lastly, Hanff plans to fight the movie studios, making him a rarity among BitTorrent hub owners.
“I am certainly not going to settle for anything that will compromise my integrity or the integrity of our members,” Hanff said. “They can bankrupt me. I don’t own a house, so they can’t take it. I own a few guitars that they can have and an old inkjet printer. It’s a waste of their time and of my time.”
Hanff argues that BitTorrent hubs should be covered by the same rulings that have made P2P services legal in the US. The hubs don’t host actual movie files. They point people to computers where the movies are stored. It’s the users and not the hub owners that are directly infringing on the movie studios’ copyrights. And with personal files and open source software being moved via BitTorrent technology, there are plenty of substantial non-infringing uses for the hubs.
Hollywood threatens to sue UK BitTorrent man for millions | The Register

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