The Motion Picture Association of America has withdrawn a court request to block Web access to a popular website that was used to stream movies illegally, but only because the site has ceased to exist.

MPAA had asked a federal court to issue an injunction forcing search engines and Internet service provides to block or delete all links and references to MovieTube as part of its lawsuit against the movie piracy site, according to industry news site Complete Music Update.

MPAA had success convincing courts in other countries to issue orders to Google and other websites to remove links to piracy sites. The MovieTube case would be a test case for the U.S., where three years before, MPAA saw anti-piracy legislation—the Stop Online Piracy Act—crash and burn after many Internet companies and Web users staged a one-day "blackout" on the Web.

Many of the same Internet companies that opposed SOPA—including Google, Facebook and Twitter—asked the court to toss MPAA's proposed injunction, saying it was too wide ranging.

The point became moot last week, when MPAA backed down from the injunction. The reason? MovieTube and its associated sites went offline several weeks ago, so the injunction was no longer needed. http://bit.ly/1KHIhBM

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