The site was offered in 19 different languages including Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, two types of Chinese, Dutch, German, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish.

In Hotfile's Privacy Policy under the 'Usage Data' section they stated "We automatically collect usage information...type of Web browser you use, your operating system, your Internet Service Provider, your IP address, the links you use, and the time and duration of your use of the Service...be aware, however, that we may be required to disclose information such as your IP address which could be used by others to attempt to identify you."

[3][4][5] Because the site charged membership fees for its premium service, the MPAA argued that Hotfile "profits richly while paying nothing to the studios" for the allegedly infringing files.

"[6] The direct copyright infringement claims were thrown out by judge Adalberto Jordan in July 2011, leaving only the secondary liability allegations to be decided.

Hotfile alleges that Warner has willingly taken down files without holding the copyrights, game demos and even open-source software and that the inappropriate takedowns continued even after the movie studio was repeatedly notified about the false claims.

[18] On December 4, 2013, Hotfile ceased all operations, on the same day as signing a $4 million settlement with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

The shutdown was preceded by the ruling of a US judge in August of the same year that the site and its owner, Anton Titov, had lost the safe harbor protection under DMCA "because they had actively encouraged infringement",[19] and consequently could be held liable for the actions of their users.