Can you get in trouble for running a bittorrent search engine, even if the files aren't located on your server? Has anybody actually received a letter to take down specific torrents or their entire site? I'm curious as people are selling scripts like: http://www.scripteen.com/scripts/scripteen-torrent-search-engine-script.html#more-12 and I'm wondering if I could be wasting my time and money on such a script? It appears they don't seem to come after smaller sites, but you hit that 20,000 or 10,000 mark in Alexa and they consider you big enough to start to shut you down. Ideas, thoughts, or suggestions?
I think it depends where you live. As far as I am aware the rules are if you don't download or upload any illegal files then there is nothing to say your breaking the law. However I think if a large company wanted your site offline they could easily however there are ways around this and you would only need to get around this IF your site was very large. Torrents are not illegal you can use them as peer to peer sharing like BIT TORRENT and LIMEWIRE they are for peer to peer haring to share there own personal files. So if you put a disclaimer on your site telling people not to use it for illegal purposes then that's there choice. As a torrent search engine site your site will be picking up content from bit torrent and other such sites so therefore you wouldn't be legally liable nor would bit torrent it is the people uploading the illegal files to share. Sorry I babbled abit there to sum up I think you would be safe just to add a disclaimer telling users not to use your site for illegal means as you can not be held liable But yea I've not got a lot of knowledge of copyright law lol so yea don't take my word for it Rick
These are typically not illegal if you are merely hosting content uploaded by third parties. You would be protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. There is a right way and wrong way to set it up. You should contact an attorney if you plan on investing time or money.
Get a dedicated server out of the Netherlands from www.ecatel.net and you can run a torrent site without any issues, whether you host the .torrent files or not.
Torrent itself is not illegal as to search engine. If I use google to search for torrent,which is possible, and says that illegal,the google will be the most illegal website on earth. And you don't even hosted the file. It's the content not the system that is illegal. Should be ok.(my opinion)
It depends on where you are. In the US it could definately be found to be illegal. The MPAA did win a case against TorrentSpy (though not technically a search engine and they deliberately destroyed evidence). Grokster was a peer-to-peer that hosted nothing (unlike Napster) and did not specifically encourage illegal downloads, but it was determined that since their system was used for this purpose the majority of the time they were guilty of contributory infringement. A torrent specific search engine, while it would technically have other uses it could be argued that any person with half a brain would assume that a search engine that exclusively looked for torrents would be used mainly to find infringing material. Also, in the US sites are not automatically protected from user content as was suggested. DMCA protections must be registered for.