In December 2013, MPAA (Hollywood’s film association) announced that they had won the case filed against Torrent website Hotfile for a settlement of $80 million. Today some Sony leaks mail unveiled by TorrentFreaks revealed that the huge amount of $80 million was nothing but a hoax spread by MPAA. This is thought to be nothing but an attempt to aggrandize the severity of the situation as well as to scare the public. The email from Sony’s TorrentFreaks say,“The studios and Hotfile have reached agreement on settlement, a week before trial was to start. Hotfile has agreed to pay us $4 million, and has entered into a stipulation to have an $80 million judgment entered and the website shut down”..
It is reported that MPAA claimed only $4 million and even prompted Hotfile to announce that they had to pay $80 million. But what we heard is that the original amount reportedly claimed by MPAA has been paid fully. According to Torrent freak’s official website, “The huge difference between the public settlement figure and the amount that was negotiated also puts previous cases in a different light. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the $110 million settlement with isoHunt and the $110 deal with TorrentSpy were just paper tigers too.”
I going to speculate that 80 million is what it cost MPAA to persecute/prosecute, 4 million is what they actually collected.