TorrentSpy.com, once one of the most popular torrent search engines, has decided to cease its operations and close its website, after two years of legal battles with MPAA.

In 2006, MPAA filed a lawsuit against TorrentSpy alleging that the latter was partially responsible for the copyright infringement its users commit against MPAA by allowing them to share pirated files.

Last year, a judge who sided with the MPAA ordered TorrentSpy to begin tracking down and storing IP addresses of its users, for later release to the MPAA, but instead the site has chosen to block the access of the US users.

In December, a federal judge in Los Angeles terminated the lawsuit against TorrentSpy because the web site provided false testimony under oath and hided and destroyed evidence, which made a fair trial impossible.

Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of U.S. District Court in the Central District of California agreed with the Motion Picture Association of America’s attorneys and decided it was necessary to terminate the case because the web site’s operators’ action had impacted the ability for the movie studios to prove their case.

TorrentSpy.com is now closed and a notice posted on the website reads: “We have decided on our own, not due to any court order or agreement, to bring the Torrentspy.com search engine to an end and thus we permanently closed down worldwide on March 24, 2008.

The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile. We spent the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the rights of our users and ourselves.

Ultimately the Court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and International law; therefore, we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown.”

But in a statement, quoted by CNET News, MPAA said that the site closure is a consequence of the last year legal decision.  

"Late last year the court imposed the harshest sanction against the TorrentSpy defendants and ruled in favor of the studios because of TorrentSpy's brazen, continuous, and systematic destruction of evidence and subversion of the judicial process. In short, the ruling meant that TorrentSpy would have to shut down their site sooner or later," MPAA noted.