The MPAA hired a hacker to steal data from a firm it had accused ...

a man claiming an MPAA executive paid him to retrieve private data on the firm. The suit, filed in U.S. Dist. Court, Central District of Cal., doesn’t name the executive, but said the man was asked to find private information on Torrentspy.com, a Bit Torrent indexing site. “We find it very ironic that the MPAA, an organization that is supposed to fight piracy, is involved in piracy in trying to contain alleged unauthorized users,” said Ira Rothken, Torrentspy’s attorney. The MPAA allegedly paid the man $15,000 to steal e-mails and trade secrets, Torrentspy’s complaint said. The man admitted his role and is cooperating with Torrentspy, it said. The suit said the man stole data on Torrentspy income and expenses, Torrentspy employees’ private e-mails, information on its servers and billing information. “[Torrentspy] facilitates piracy,” a spokeswoman for the MPAA said: “They know the law is not on their side and they are responding with a baseless claim.” In February, MPAA sued Torrentspy and other search engines, alleging they aid in the flow of unauthorized content over the Internet. The movie industry claims Torrentspy’s main function was to facilitate copyright infringement (WID March 29 p10). Torrentspy has said the 2 cases are unrelated. “It will be interesting to see if the MPAA wants to hide behind general denial or wants to admit they paid someone,” Rothken said: “If they are not going to answer that question it would be quite telling.” Torrentspy has asked for unspecified damages and a jury title.