US Court Wants isoHunt to Remove Infringing Torrents

[olddays1]

 Well here goes another one!

US Court Wants isoHunt to Remove Infringing Torrents
Written by Ernesto on March 31, 2010

http://torrentfreak.com/us-court-wants-isohunt-to-remove-infringing-torrents-100331/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

A United States court wants isoHunt to stop inducing copyright infringement via torrents that can be found through the popular BitTorrent search engine. The proposed injunction would require isoHunt to censor its site based on a list of keywords. A similar measure led to the quasi-shutdown of Mininova last year.

In an ongoing legal battle with MPAA-represented movie studios, a Californian court has now proposed a permanent injunction that would require isoHunt to maintain a list of banned keywords and remove torrents that match items found on it.

The proposed keyword filter is a suggestion from the movie studios that was taken over by the court. Last year, a Dutch court ordered fellow torrent site Mininova to install a similar measure. The operators of Mininova found it technically unfeasible to pre-approve or filter every potentially infringing torrent file, so restricted their torrent offerings to uploads made by approved users instead.

IsoHunt owner Gary Fung has no faith in a filtering mechanism either. He previously told TorrentFreak that such a measure “raises serious issues on the balance between freedom of speech, fair use and copyright protectionism,” as it would also filter out many torrent files that are in the public domain, or distributed with the consent of copyright holders.

It has to be noted that the court’s suggestion is not yet a final order. Fung told TorrentFreak that he will certainly be objecting to the proposal. Instead of a keyword filter Fung has prepared a ‘lite’ version of isoHunt that would address the judge’s concern on inducing copyright infringement.

The lite version of the site is nothing more than a big search box similar to other search engines such as Google. Unlike the present site where users can browse through various torrent categories, the lite version should not induce copyright infringement any more than other search engines, Fung reasons.

Whether or not the court will accept this lite version, it is unlikely that isoHunt will start to actively filter content from the site in the future. The ultimate measure would be to block access to visitors from the United States, which would also be sufficient to comply with the court’s demands.

[olddays1]

isoHunt Redirects US Visitors to Lite Version
Written by Ernesto on April 06, 2010

http://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-redirects-us-visitors-to-lite-version-100406/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

Following legal pressure brought by the MPAA, BitTorrent search engine isoHunt has decided to redirect all visitors from the United States to a Lite version of the site. With this action, isoHunt hopes to prevent a judicial order which would require the site to implement a mandatory filter and remove torrents based on a list of ‘banned words’.

Early 2006, the MPAA issued a complaint against isoHunt and its sister site Torrentbox, claiming that owner Gary Fung operated file-sharing services and profited from copyright infringement.

The case has been dragging on ever since and last week a Californian court proposed a permanent injunction that would require isoHunt to maintain a list of banned keywords and remove torrents that match items found on it.

Fung has always been very outspoken about having to filter content from his site based on keywords, saying that such a measure is too extreme. Today, in an attempt to avert having to filter content, isoHunt is redirecting US visitors to a Lite version of the site to deal with claims of induced copyright infringement.

“Although we bring this new search engine to you with a burden from the lawsuit brought by the MPAA, we hope you understand the reason why we are making this change. It is to address concerns Judge Wilson has over inducing copyright infringement in the US,” Fung writes in an announcement.

“To protest the possibility we may be required by US law in upcoming injunction to keyword filter for US users, we have redirected isohunt.com to isohunt.hk to demonstrate the similarity to a certain other popular search engine also required to censor in China,” isoHunts owner adds.

The Lite version of the site shows users a big search box similar to the design of other search engines including Google. Unlike the present site where users can browse through various torrent categories, the lite version should not induce copyright infringement any more than other search engines. Through this change isoHunt hopes to prevent having to filter its search results.

With the Lite version of isoHunt, Gary Fung hopes to prevent the site’s closure in the US, which he prefers over a keyword filter. If the court somehow rules that it’s still violating copyright law, one has to wonder what implications this has for Google, Yahoo! and other search engines.

[olddays1]

IsoHunt Forced to Shut Down in the US

http://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-forced-to-shut-down-in-the-u-s-100522/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

IsoHunt Forced to Shut Down in the US
Written by Ernesto on May 22, 2010

The US District Court of California has issued a permanent injunction against the BitTorrent search engine isoHunt, forcing it to shut down in the United States. IsoHunt is expected to block all access to US visitors in response to the decision, but no action has been taken thus far.

Early 2006, the MPAA issued a complaint against isoHunt and its sister site TorrentBox, claiming that owner Gary Fung operated file-sharing services and profited from copyright infringement.

The case went on in the years that followed and two months ago the US District Court of California proposed a permanent injunction that would require isoHunt to maintain a list of banned keywords and remove torrents that match items found on it. This injunction has now become final, meaning that the site has to start filtering or close down in the US.

IsoHunt owner Gary Fung earlier told TorrentFreak that he has no faith in a filtering mechanism either. He said that such a measure “raises serious issues on the balance between freedom of speech, fair use and copyright protectionism,” as it would also filter out many torrent files that are in the public domain, or distributed with the consent of copyright holders.

Last month isoHunt chose to redirect all United States visitors to a Lite version of its website in a final attempt to prevent the search engine from having to close, but this was not enough according to the Court.

The verdict does not necessarily mean that isoHunt will be unavailable in other parts of the world. Gary Fung earlier told TorrentFreak that the ultimate measure would be to block access to visitors from the United States, which would also be sufficient to comply with the Court’s demands.

IsoHunt is not the first torrent site that has been put out of business in the United States by the MPAA. In the summer of 2007 a federal judge ruled that TorrentSpy had to monitor its users in order to create detailed logs of their activities and these were to be handed over to the MPAA.

In a response to this decision, TorrentSpy decided to block access to all US visitors instead which led to a huge drop in traffic. In 2008 TorrentSpy, once the largest torrent site on the Internet, closed its doors for good after it was ordered to pay a 110 million dollar fine.

Fung has to comply with the temporary injunction withing a day. The permanent injunction also holds for isoHunt’s sister sites TorrentBox, Podtropolis and Ed2k-it.

[stuarttootell]

Rather amusing that,  that wonderful bastion of free speech the U.S.A never actually practices what it preaches.

Money grubbing media industry robber barons still don't have enough money ?