Piracy site IsoHunt to shut down and pay $110m

[Deleted]

source:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24580130


IsoHunt, a popular website offering BitTorrents of mostly pirated material, is to shut down following a court settlement.

The site's owner, Canadian Gary Fung, has agreed to pay $110m (£68m) to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

MPAA chairman Chris Dodd said the move was a "major step forward" for legitimate commerce online.

In a blog post, Mr Fung said: "It's sad to see my baby go."

The site is currently still online, but will soon be shut. It is one of the most popular sites of its kind on the internet.

A group of companies, including Disney, Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox, accused the site of wilfully infringing copyright by listing millions of popular movies and TV programmes - in a court battle that has lasted for more than seven years.

Now Mr Fung has agreed to settle. He added: "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 start-up time.

"It started as a programming hobby in my university days that has become so, so much more."

Court documents acknowledged that it is unlikely that Mr Fung's company could pay $110m, and that the MPAA would probably receive between $2m and $4m.

Degree of separation
Like a similar site, The Pirate Bay, that has been blocked in the UK by a court order, IsoHunt did not host pirated material itself.

It instead acted as a directory of sources from which to download illegal files.

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“
Start Quote

The successful outcome of this landmark lawsuit will also will help preserve jobs and protect the tens of thousands of businesses in the creative industries”

Chris Dodd
Motion Picture Association of America
According to court documents, Mr Fung's defence hinged on this degree of separation - and argued that it was the users of IsoHunt responsible for distributing pirated material, not IsoHunt.

The Californian court disagreed.

"It 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 accountable for their illegal actions," said MPAA chairman Mr Dodd.

"The successful outcome of this landmark lawsuit will also will help preserve jobs and protect the tens of thousands of businesses in the creative industries, whose hard work and investments are exploited by sites like IsoHunt."

'Reluctant revolutionary'
Ahead of the ruling, Mr Fung had taken to social news site Reddit to take part in an AMAA - Ask Me Almost Anything - session.

In it, he described himself as a "reluctant revolutionary", and backed calls for copyright reform.

He said he did not hold a disregard for the law, and acted upon requests to remove links to pirated content when the company was made aware.

Walking Dead billboard
Despite efforts to minimise piracy, vast numbers still illegally downloaded TV series The Walking Dead
He also said the industry could render sites like IsoHunt obsolete if it offered simultaneous releases worldwide, as well as digital offerings that were cheaper than physical copies.

His thoughts echoed findings by a trio of researchers at George Mason University in Virginia, US.

Their site piracydata.org has been collating the weekly top 10 most-pirated films and investigating whether legal digital methods were available.

They found that half of the movies in the list were not available to access legally online. Furthermore, none of the 10 titles could be streamed - arguably the most straightforward way to consume media online.

However, in contrast, efforts by Fox to curb piracy of TV series The Walking Dead fell flat.

Despite the first episode of the latest series being made available to stream free online, the programme was still illegally downloaded more than 500,000 times, according to data gathered by Torrentfreak.com.

[Deleted]

They shut down pirateproxy a few months ago, I last used it 10 minutes ago.

[Wilian]

Well, damn. That site was really good for stuff that was actually legal to download.

[Raptor With a Saber]

Those darn Canadians stealing from the wealthy people having to go without those 20 car garages and golden diamond encrusted swimming pools. Making the commonwealth have easy access to things that would be free in a few months.

[poser765]

That's too bad. It's sad to see them falling like this. I still lament Demonoid. Everyone said it would be back up, but not yet. It pains me how reliant I am for the bay now days. Honestly, though for the stuff I download the most of I just use IRC.

[Deleted]

Too bad indeed. One of the few sites where you could get literally anything. I'll have to rely on the pirate bay more now.

[re1gn1te]

I've been using isohunt less and less lately it's being dying out imo. kickasstorrent is very active tho. But eh that's how it goes in that type of buissness more will pop up as more get shut down, this is a war that they'll never win.

[Deleted]

Kickass and fenopy and pirate bay are all blocked in the UK, i use torolock its the bes one over here

[ringpriest]

I've been using isohunt less and less lately it's being dying out imo. kickasstorrent is very active tho. But eh that's how it goes in that type of buissness more will pop up as more get shut down, this is a war that they'll never win.

Yep. The IP rent-extraction industry's King Canute act is sad but amusing to watch in action.

[Fullmetal89]

These MPAA bastards think they are winning the war on Piracy, the thing they don't get is that for every big pirating website they shut down. Thousands of smaller torrent sites spring up and those tend to do more harm than the big ones. Since they aren't moderated nor checked for malicious software. Copyright laws are outdated and need to be revised. They will never win the war against piracy as long as the internet exists, its impossible. Unless they somehow manage to get every country in the world to conform under their copyright laws and monitor their web traffic.

[Deleted]

These MPAA bastards think they are winning the war on Piracy, the thing they don't get is that for every big pirating website they shut down. Thousands of smaller torrent sites spring up and those tend to do more harm than the big ones. Since they aren't moderated nor checked for malicious software. Copyright laws are outdated and need to be revised. They will never win the war against piracy as long as the internet exists, its impossible. Unless they somehow manage to get every country in the world to conform under their copyright laws and monitor their web traffic.

Better make a better enviroment and protect those poor pirates...

Also wouldn't be that hard to convience countries, millions/billions in tax-dollars or rampant piracy which gives 0 dollars

[Deleted]

The eternal whining of the entertainment industry never gets old or less funny. Perhaps they could start with adapting their content and delivery methods to something that is viable for their audience; Lazy, secluded and broke teenagers with no money of their own. Nah, fuck that. It's so much easier and cheaper to put effort into removing yottabytes worth of data from the internet, that is surely the best and most resource friendly alternative.

[Deleted]

Kickass and fenopy and pirate bay are all blocked in the UK, i use torolock its the bes one over here

<snip> for UK copy of pirate bay. It bypasses the filter.


Let's not post links to content that may be illegal for users depending on their location, thanks. - Endus

[Jawless Jones]

i agree with fullmetal, piracy is like a hydra, you cut off one head and more will take its place

closing one site isnt going to stop people from pirating stuff, and theres no way to can close down every torrenting website, entertainment industry vs piracy is like an eternal game of whack-a-mole

[Soeroah]

Maybe more simultaneous screening of programs around the world would be an idea to consider? It's rather annoying having to wait a week to a month to never to get to watch a show, especially in the modern day when a plot twist can be all over the Internet in mere seconds. Delaying the release of a show to other regions will only encourage people to seek out illegal means of viewing them, because the alternative is to not enjoy the program as they otherwise would.

There's a thing called iView here in Australia, where new shows are put up within an hour of screening and remain for two weeks to several months. You can stream them at any time, free of ads. Pretty much every show on the various ABC channels appears there. I love it. Unfortunately, most other free-to-air channels don't have this system, so the only way to catch a show you missed is to either wait six months for a DVD, if not longer, or download it from the Internet, since we don't really have access to things like Hulu or Netflix.

Foxtel, too, is a rip-off. If you want to watch one show, you have to pay for like six channels you don't want, and buy further packages if what you want to watch isn't on that channel. Why not have an iTunes type system where you can buy the license to watch a specific show, without ads, instead of buying in bulk? Also, release it simultaneously around the world that way. And don't change ridiculous amounts for it; I'd expect people would be more likely to buy microtransaction episodes than to download them. While it takes money to produce the show, surely the amount of money it costs to put it on a server and sell digital downloads is negligible compared to DVDs and shipping, etc.

And the last thing; I would love to buy such digital programs, but not if they were marked up by 70% in my country for no real reason over the US prices. It's still digital, it costs the same to send it via the Internet. Why charge $2.99 for a song here when the US gets it for 99c, that only encourages piracy, too. It can't be the exchange rate, as the mark up has remained roughly the same regardless of whether my dollar bought 80 US cents or $1.05 US.

[Jtbrig7390]

I personally find that depressing and like others have said that just means more shitty turrent sites will show up.

To this day I still say demonoid was the best turrent site around and to this day I still miss it.

[zazuch]

They will never end piracy. They can how ever lesson its effects if like mentioned here allow people to get the content easier. Disc based/hard copy medium is dying out faster and faster everyday. Also a lot of piracy is done because either its easier then dealing with some of the drm(looks at previous attempts of drm in video games) or b they cant get it in the first place. I wont lie I downloaded somethings that I had NO intentions of ever buying. The thing is some of the things I downloaded I enjoyed so much I went and bought to support the company.

But they really need to stop releasing dvd box sets of series for 50-60$ for just a few episodes thats just stupid. IF they realized that over pricing things is whats killing them they could make more money.

Big companies in media are just ever so detached from its customer base. The customer base is changing much faster then they are willing to change. Ex the on going battle between Nintendo/Sega and YouTube videos. They block and ban and videos posted with there content not realizing that while they do get some people that may hurt there sales(still not sold that lets plays ruin game sales as bad as they seem to think.) I have bought many games because I first saw a YouTube personality i follow playing it. Went damn that looks like a fun game and bought it.


They just need to move on from there archaic ways and adapt then they will make even more damn money.

[Tackhisis]

It never stops amaze me how people are trying to find some moral ground for stealing.

If a show is too expensive for you, make your own for free and we'll see how it would fare.

[vizzle]

The eternal whining of the entertainment industry never gets old or less funny. Perhaps they could start with adapting their content and delivery methods to something that is viable for their audience; Lazy, secluded and broke teenagers with no money of their own. Nah, fuck that. It's so much easier and cheaper to put effort into removing yottabytes worth of data from the internet, that is surely the best and most resource friendly alternative.

I wonder how one gets money from people with "no money of their own".

[Deleted]

I wonder how one gets money from people with "no money of their own".

They have parents, welfare or other minor incomes. Making them spend it is easy, you just have to appeal to their personality and wallets.

How many more people do you think would pay and watch a movie on it's release day if you could watch it at home on your PC or TV instead of having to go to a crowded theater? How many more views do you think TWD would get if you could just pay a one time fee instead of a monthly subscription to the network? It's not that hard to figure out how to get more money.