French Court Says Merely Having The Word 'Torrent' In Your Domain Means You Are Encouraging Infringement

We've noticed before how many copyright maximalists make claims that suggest they believe that all BitTorrent is used for is infringement, even though it is used as an efficient distribution mechanism for all sorts of legitimate offerings. However, a court in France has apparently decided to punish the admin of a forum/search engine for torrent files, in part, by claiming that having the word "torrent" in your URL means that you're encouraging infringement:

The papers include a statement from the Court which declares that “..the names of these sites [when they include the word 'torrent'] encourage illegal activity. Torrent sites are accessed by users of the BitTorrent protocol which has a main, if not unique purpose, of enabling downloading of copyright protected works.”

In a nutshell, having the word “torrent” in a domain name can be reason enough to presume bad intentions.

That's pretty ridiculous, as there are sites that use the word "torrent" that have nothing to do with infringement. Seems like yet another case of people who don't understand technology making decisions that seriously impact everyone.

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Kate Moss Zhang Ziyi Nikki Reed Natasha Bedingfield Audrina Patridge