Skip to main content

Hotfile agrees to pay movie studios $80 million in copyright case settlement

hotfile to pay 80 million logo
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Just days ahead of the expected commencement of a trial which would’ve put the major movie studios up against the prominent ‘cyberlocker’ site Hotfile, the latter has settled to the tune of $80 million and agreed to terminate its operations unless it “employs copyright filtering technologies that prevent infringement.” So if Hotfile does find a way to continue, it won’t be in its current form. 

The news came via a statement (pdf) released Tuesday by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents the nation’s major studios, and comes two years after the MPAA sued Hotfile in 2011, leading to the case that was lined up to begin Friday.

According to an Ars Technica report, the trial would likely have centered on damages, as US district judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida had, back in the summer, rejected the cyberlocker site’s ‘safe-harbor’ defense under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), stating that Hotfile founder Anton Titov would be liable for its users’ actions regarding copyright infringement. Before then, in most circumstances a company providing a hosting service or such like could not be held liable for the behavior of its users when interacting with its site or service.

While Hotfile defenders argue that the site is merely a storage facility for digital files, Williams said it went beyond this and was effectively a distribution business.

According to Williams’ summer ruling, Hotfile received a sizable 10 million DMCA notices from organizations claiming copyright prior to the 2011 lawsuit filing. However, Hotfile is said to have pulled the plug on only 43 accounts. 

The Southern District Court of Florida ruling also included data collected by the studios, which claimed that copyrighted content belonging to them made up 10 percent of all downloads on Hotfile.

“This judgment by the court is another important step toward protecting an Internet that works for everyone,” Senator Dodd, chairman and CEO of the MPAA, said in Tuesday’s statement, adding, “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.”

In February last year the site said it took seriously “the rights of copyright holders, and requires that its users agree not to share copyrighted works of others.”

Hotfile reportedly hosted 123 million files, which 5.3 million registered users downloaded 2.9 billion times.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
How to change your language in Google Chrome on desktop
Chrome OS

Google Chrome supports a wide range of languages. While it'll default to English in most cases, there's nothing stopping you from changing its settings and displaying pages in Spanish, French, or dozens of other languages.

Changing your default language in Chrome takes only a few seconds, and the technique used is the same across Windows and Mac. Aside from changing your language, note that Chrome now gives you the option to automatically translate pages written in another language – making it easy to read content from around the globe.

Read more
23 of the best Netflix hacks, tips, and tricks
The Netflix home screen.

Netflix is one of the most popular streaming platforms for all things movies and TV shows. Home to an immense library of titles, the Netflix archive is constantly changing and evolving, and so are the many ways you can use your Netflix account. 

For instance, did you know you can access region-locked Netflix shows and flicks by using a VPN? Or that you can disable that pesky Autoplay feature? There are tons of Netflix hacks, tips, and tricks out there, so we’ve gone ahead and rounded up all of our favorites! 
Expand your streaming with a VPN

Read more
How to make a GIF from a YouTube video
woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Read more