YTS / YIFY Signs Unprecedented Settlement With MPAA

YTS / YIFY Signs Unprecedented Settlement With MPAA

For several years YTS/YIFY has been one of Hollywood's biggest arch-rivals but both sides came to an unprecedented agreement in recent weeks. Instead of going to trial over the alleged widespread piracy facilitated by the site, the MPAA signed a deal with its operator, ending a multi-million dollar lawsuit before it really got started.

This week the MPAA ended the mystery surrounding the unexpected shutdown of the torrent site YTS.to and its associated release group YIFY.

While the announcement answered a lot of questions it also raises a few more.

The alleged mastermind behind the operation, a New Zealand citizen, was facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit. However, the dispute was already settled before the case got properly underway.

Sources have informed TorrentFreak that the operator and the movie studios reached a private agreement. It’s unclear what the terms are but judging from previous deals it’s likely to involve a damages payment as well as some type of information sharing

The news of a quick resolution is corroborated by local MPAA representatives who informed the NZ Herald that the case against the YTS/YIFY operator was settled out of court.

To many this deal comes as a surprise, as the MPAA previously preferred to send a strong and deterring message. In this case, however, other factors may have weighed stronger.

It could be that the operator has very valuable information to trade. It’s also possible that the MPAA wanted to avoid another piracy case besides Megaupload in New Zealand. Or they might simply want to settle the case without incurring large legal fees.

Whatever the case, the settlement is unprecedented when compared to other MPAA cases that dragged on for years, including the ones against isoHunt, Hotfile and TorrentSpy.

It also stands in sharp contrast to the criminal referrals the MPAA made against Megaupload, NinjaVideo and the IMAGiNE release group.

Since YTS/YIFY was both a release group and a major torrent site, it was certainly just as big of a target as the aforementioned, if not bigger.

TF contacted the MPAA for information on the decision to settle as well as further details on the agreement. The movie group said it couldn’t comment.

Thus far the YTS operator has remained silent. Perhaps we’ll hear the true story from him one day a few years from now…

Source - TorrentFreak

yes it would be nice to know.

Wow, how shitty of YIFY. Just lot a lot of respect for me for settling with the feds. We all know what we do is illegal, one day we will get burned for it, but that doesn't mean you roll over and let them win because they are going to sue you. There are LOTS of ways to make that content go away quick and leave the feds standing in the wind with their tally whackers.

I am sad to see YIFY go, but if their ground is the type to roll over and share our information / how the have been distributing content, then good riddens. One less coward in the torrenting community. Seriously I want to know what the info being shared is. Because it has to be pretty important to settle a multi million dollar law suit out of court just like that.

Yikes, will be interesting to find out what happened. Suspicious for them to rollover just like that :/