Quebec Superior Court has ordered the permanent shutdown of a popular peer-to-peer downloading website where members exchanged music, TV episodes and films.

The permanent injunction against QuebecTorrent and its administrators, granted Wednesday, is the first of its kind in the province, and marks a victory for the music and movie industries who say they are suffering profit losses because of illegal downloading.

The court order covers the entire province.

The Association québécoise de l'industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la vidéo (ADISQ), a provincial music, video and concert organization, originally spurred the courts to act against QuebecTorrent last year.

The injunction will send a strong and clear message to other administrators who run illegal downloading sites, said director-general Slange Drouin.

'If you make something, is it OK for somebody else to come and take it? Can you walk into a music store and take the CDs off the shelf without paying?’

--Marc Swanson

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"We hope this judgment will have a dissuasive effect, because nothing prevents us now to target other sites that engage in the same kind of illegal transactions," she said.

ADISQ also sought $200,000 in damages from QuebecTorrent and its administrator, Sébastien Brulotte. But ADISQ won't pursue the website for damages, after QuebecTorrent said it wouldn't fight the permanent injunction, Drouin said.

Canadian copyright laws forbid the reproduction or transmission by internet of any protected work without the consent of the rights holder or author. But peer-to-peer sites are ubiquitous on the internet.

QuebecTorrent specialized in Quebec content and claimed to have tens of thousands of members who were asked to donate to the site.

With files from the Canadian Press