A month after accusing the Motion Picture Association of America of conspiring to commit data theft, the operators of a file search engine presented more details regarding the alleged relationship between the MPAA and a man who admits hacking the small company's network.

Valence Media, the parent company of Torrentspy.com, charges that the MPAA paid the Canadian resident $15,000 for information on Torrentspy and its executives, according to documents filed Thursday with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.

"I contacted (the MPAA) and offered to provide it information regarding (Torrentspy.com founder) Justin Bunnell and Torrentspy," according to a signed statement by Robert Anderson, the man identified elsewhere in the filing as a "hacker."

Among the claims by Valence Media is that as part of its attempt to gather information on Torrentspy, the MPAA hired private investigators to comb the trash cans of Torrentspy executives. Valence Media obtained this information from Anderson, who for undisclosed reasons has agreed to help the company against the Hollywood industry group, according to copy of the suit obtained by CNET News.com. Valence Media has asked a judge to order the MPAA to turn over the information taken by Anderson and to identify anyone that the association may have shared it with.

This is the latest volley in a legal battle that began in February, when the MPAA sued Torrentspy and other directories that it accuses of contributing to the theft of copyright movies. Some file sharers use search engines, such as Torrentspy, to locate downloadable movies. The movie industry group has aggressively pursued those accused of distributing copyright material, as well as directories that the MPAA says are abetting piracy.

An MPAA spokeswoman did not immediately return phone calls, but the association issued a broad denial to Torrentspy's initial charges.

Valence Media charged in its suit that on June 10, 2005, MPAA executives met with Anderson, a resident of Vancouver, Canada. Dean Garfield, the MPAA's director of legal affairs, was among the association's representatives who agreed to pay Anderson $15,000 to obtain private e-mails, financial and technology information, according to the court documents. Garfield could not be immediately reached for comment.

An MPAA executive told Anderson: "We don't care how you get it," Valence Media alleges in the court documents.

Anderson, who could not be immediately reached for comment, was successful at breaching Torrentspy's computer system, Valence Media alleges. By rigging Torrentspy's e-mail system, Anderson received copies of company e-mail as soon as they were sent or received, as well as important login information, according to the suit. This allowed him broad access to company data, Valence Media claims.

The company's suit said Anderson managed to pilfer a spreadsheet of company earnings and expenses, indexes of file architecture, screen shots of proprietary search functions and even a utility bill belonging to one Torrentspy executive.

In July 2005, the MPAA reviewed Anderson's work and wired $15,000 to a Toronto-based bank account, according to the court documents.

The MPAA's recent LEK study into intellectual property theft has been dismissed by the UK's Industry Trust for Intellectual Property Awareness (ITfIPA) as inaccurate and out of date.

The dismissal came after discrepancies between that report, and figures the ITfIPA itself publicises were highlighted. Stefanie Riese-McCartney, spokesperson for the trust, said of the Lex study “This information is so old now (research done in 2004) that I’m afraid it’s lost its currency”. She then went on to say that a British Video Association study from November 2005 was more accurate as it was more recent. The study consisted of “face-to-face interviews with 2,000 members of the public in GB of 15 years+”. The MPAA were contacted, but declined to reply.

Apparently, though, there is some confusion as to what the actual public line should be, since at two points Miss Riese-McCartney defended the differences in values (£108.5M for the BVA study, $175M/£98.5M for the MPAA study) as “due to the fact that the methodologies employed were completely different.” Although how they can use two different methods to measure the same thing, have a 10% difference, and still believe either to be accurate beggars belief. Unless, then, there has been a schism in the nature of reality, one, or possibly both, figures are wrong. Fortunately, the ITfIPA does also give a 3rd reason in the same set of statements.

“The figure is used on the piracy is a crime website to make the point that piracy is making a huge impact on many levels, not just losses to copyright owners. Although it's certainly important to be accurate, we have a common aim with the MPA and other organisations to raise awareness of the harm done by piracy.” - in short, whilst accuracy is nice, getting our point across is nicer.

However, this is not the first time the ITfIPA has revealed information that has broken with the broadly established copyright agency gameplan. In December 2005, the ITfIPA let slip that they considered public domain material copyrighted.