Who's More Ethical: TorrentSpy Or The MPAA?

Found on Techdirt on Tuesday, 23 October 2007
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Wired has an interview with Robert Anderson, the guy who hacked into TorrentSpy's servers and handed over a bunch of internal TorrentSpy info to the MPAA. From the interview, it's quite clear that the MPAA knew that it was getting access to content that had not been legally obtained, but it still pushed Anderson for more such info (including asking him if he could obtain similar info about The Pirate Bay).

At the same time, however, we've noted that TorrentSpy is so aghast at the idea of spying on its own users, that it shut off US access to its site to protect its users from court-ordered spying. So, which organization comes across as more ethical here? The MPAA, who's actively trying to get confidential information from various torrent tracker sites? Or TorrentSpy, who's actively trying to protect the privacy of its users?

I don't see a lot of ethical reasons when an industry knowingly pays for illegal information. TorrentSpy however decided to shut off access from the US to protect the userbase. While this may be troublesome for some users, it's clearly the better choice, especially when you keep in mind that otherwise they would have to log all user information and hand it over. Besides, living in the US doesn't mean you're unable to access TorrentSpy.