Hotfile ordered to pay $80M in copyright suit

Hollywood studios have won a copyright case against Hotfile Corp. after a Florida judge ordered the file-hosting website to pay $80 million in damages.

The court also ordered Hotfile to shut down unless the website uses technology to weed out pirated copies of movies and other material that users upload.

The judgment, by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, was announced Tuesday by the Motion Picture Association of America.

The court found Hotfile liable for copyright infringement in August and rejected its "safe harbor" defense under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The court also found its principal, Anton Titov, personally liable for infringement.

Attorneys for Hotfile did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

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