AfterDawn: Tech news

R.I.P isoHunt

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 17 Oct 2013 2:30 User comments (13)

R.I.P isoHunt The once-popular torrent index site isoHunt will shut down for good following a settlement with the MPAA and Hollywood studios.
In addition to shutting down, the settlement terms include a $110 million penalty against the site and its owner, Gary Fung.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian says shes has canceled a planned hearing due to the new settlement. Despite winning the original case against them (which began in 2006), the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in March ruled against isoHunt, claiming "there is more than enough unrebutted evidence in the summary judgment record to prove Fung offered his services with the object of promoting their use to infringe copyrighted material."

Finally, the settlement will prohibit Fung from "further profiting from the infringement of MPAA member studio content."

Reads the MPAA's statement: The news "sends a strong message that those who build businesses around encouraging, enabling and helping others to commit copyright infringement are themselves infringers, and will be held accoutbale for their actions."

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13 user comments

117.10.2013 15:51

Considering you can get just about the same results by using "ext:torrent" after a search term in Google, this is a bad joke.

217.10.2013 17:17

It's sends a strong message all right: take down 1, 20 more open. Good luck with that.

But I just want to clarify that isohunt.com still works through Canadian proxy. And there is no notice anywhere on the site at all they believe they are shut down and all torrents searched within are still pretty much active. So the MPAA may believe they have shut them down, but no: they are very much still existing.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 17 Oct 2013 @ 5:20

317.10.2013 18:00

Just tested it and did a search for "Katy Perry"............tons of results!

417.10.2013 19:05

You don't even need a proxy. I get in just fine using OpenDNS ^^ .

517.10.2013 21:05

It's true you don't need the proxy: it's a matter of just going the extra mile if you want to re-direct traffic and attention. Not that it would fool the likes of the NSA: but as far as the MPAA are concerned, they can blow me. Hell I don't even use public access torrent boards anyhow: I just wanted to know if it was really shut down. Now at any-time they could still get shut down, or maybe shut down for just US, I dunno. Maybe there's X amount of days before they have to comply, but if there is, there still isn't any mention of it on their site.

However I did find this which was posted on Mr. Fung's facebook
"http://garyfung.ca/?p=11"

Which essentially explains the above article, but still has not shut down date: or maybe he sold it prior to being shut down and new owners took over.

"It’s sad to see my baby go. But I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. 10.5 years of isoHunt has been a long journey by any business definition, and forever in Internet startup time. It started as a programming hobby in my university days that has become so, so much more. It’s been a learning experience beyond what I imagined. I’ve done the best I could pushing the social benefits of BitTorrent and file sharing, the searching and sharing of culture itself, but it’s time for me to move on to new software ideas and projects." - Gary Fung

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 17 Oct 2013 @ 9:10

618.10.2013 15:09

WOW - the settlement terms include a $110 million penalty?!
Business musta been good.
I used it all the time.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 18 Oct 2013 @ 11:24

718.10.2013 15:09

WOW - the settlement terms include a $110 million penalty?!
Business musta been good.
I used it all the time.

830.10.2013 17:01

Anyone who frequents places like afterdawn wouldn't believe for a second that this action actually accomplishes anything. But we are not the demographic that this is intended for. Obviously there's a hundred different ways you can obtain the same material.

However the average joe who just uses things like utorrent to download movies and music wouldn't be as on top of things like this, and this is the group that these actions are hoping to reach.

I could be wrong about all of this...I suppose it's possible that the MPAA really is deluded enough to think that this actually accomplishes anything worthwhile.

931.10.2013 04:54
min5sevaan
Inactive

Won't change anything, only is just some kind of small victory for mpaa, to make them feel better.

1031.10.2013 06:08

i never used iso hunt because they allowed files that could get you arrested and not copyrighted materials books and movies on how to make weapons fake your death..

books that have been banned in several countries as well

i also noticed a load of rar files that wanted you to download a piece of malware to get passwords to unlock bogus rar files.

in my honest opinion bye bye you will not be missed by me

1131.10.2013 13:07

..? It was just a search engine, NOT an aggregator like The Pirate Bay. You might as well get pissed at Google.

1216.11.2013 12:04

Well they will be SUPER missed by me - This is the second site I used for my ebooks, and now I will have to go back to the drawing board and find a new site! No happy! Bub bye ISO! :((

1316.11.2013 12:12

http://libgen.org

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 16 Nov 2013 @ 12:12

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