ICELAND - Following a hearing this week, Torrent.is faces permanent shutdown and an order to compensate copyright owners.
Torrent.is received a preliminary injunction in November 2007, resulting in the shutdown of the site and a 50 percent decrease in Internet traffic in Iceland.
In the public hearing held this week, plaintiffs asked for a permanent shutdown of the BitTorrent tracker and compensation for damages.
Snæbjörn Steingrímsson, executive of the SMAIS (the Icelandic equivalent of the MPAA), led the investigation and wants his clients to be compensated for losses they claim to have suffered because of Torrent.is.
Steingrímsson said he couldn't state the exact amount of the damages being claimed, but he said they were a few hundred million kronor. (100 million kronor = $1.3 million)
Steingrímsson was a member of the BitTorrent site and shared copyrighted material on the tracker as part of his investigation.
Torrent.is had around 26,500 users before being taken offline and was the largest and most famous private BitTorrent tracker in Iceland. Almost 10 percent of Iceland's population were members.
Torrent.is only allowed Icelandic IPs to connect to the tracker to ensure fast connectivity between peers.
Svavar Kjarrval, head administrator of Torrent.is, said he is confident that he has a strong case.
"The plaintiffs are making an outrageous claim," he told TorrentFreak. "They argue that website and domain owners should always be responsible for copyright violations of third parties. The case could set a dangerous precedent if the court agrees with their claims."
Earlier this month, Reykjavík District Court convicted nine people of distributing copyrighted material via Direct Connect.
