Isohunt Foresees a Legal Future
Written by Ernesto on August 15, 2007Isohunt’s owner Gary Fung speculates about having MPAA-approved movie downloads on his site that will compete with their pirated counterparts. Gary, who called TPB admin Brokep a communist, shows that he’s a true capitalist himself.
In a recent article from the Brisbane Times, Gary elaborated on the future of Isohunt and P2P media distribution in general, stating:
“BitTorrent really helps make content distribution cheaper and faster. The natural progression, as we’ve seen with YouTube and MySpace, is a lot more media distribution is going to be done online, and that’s going to converge with the client and P2P technologies.”
Gary further pinpoints that content owners should embrace P2P, instead of fighting it. One day he hopes to offer “premium” torrents to his users, uploaded and approved by the MPAA and friends. By making high quality files available for a decent price, and without restrictions such as DRM, a lot of people will go for the legal alternative instead of the pirated copies.
Personally, I agree with Gary that content owners should be more open to P2P solutions. A good balance between price on the one hand, and availability and quality (no-DRM) on the other, could really compete with pirated movies. However, there’s still a long way to go. BitTorrent Inc. is currently offering paid BitTorrent downloads, but so far they didn’t convince the content owners to do this without DRM, for a decent price (except their $0.99 promotional offers).
Revenue wise, Isohunt is not doing badly at the moment, even without paid downloads. Gary said that he earns a decent living, even though he pays $6000 each month for hosting, and an estimated $22,000 in legal fees. The legal fees are of course related to the lawsuits initiated by the MPAA. Gary is still awaiting the court’s decision in this case, but he is confident that it will be a victory for Isohunt. In his view Isohunt is just another search engine like Google and Yahoo.
Previously: Torrentz.com: Growing Bigger and Better
Next: Anti-Piracy Lobby Pressures Police to Take On The Pirate Bay
61 Responses
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What a sellout scumbag!! yay 1st post I’m so 1337!!
That was a surprsingly fair article, and it came out of a publication from my home town!
you woulda thought gary could afford a decent haircut
Fuk ISOhunt, now hes going to try make money out of torrents which you can get for free else where (such as TPB). yeah, sure people are going to pay for it and give money to those Mother-Fuking BASTARDS at the mpaa and the riaa when they can get it for free, makes total sense.
Terrible fucktard, making profits out of file-sharing is wrong .. don’t care if it’s approved or not.
Somebody should just hack his fucking site and teach him a lesson.
And I thought better of Asians .. OH GAWD
I live about 30 minutes from Gary but our viewpoints couldn’t be more different: the best solution, iMHO, is a Sealand type operation and anonymous downloads. period.
Yay, yet another good torrent site is caving in to the **AA.
[quote]Gary, who called TPB admin Brokep a communist, shows that he’s a true capitalist himself.[/quote]
Ewwww, capitalists :/
Everybody should use Torrentz.com instead of Isohunt. And to be honest I don’t understand why we should read this Asian’s opinion. He doesn’t have a site like thepiratebay,so, with or without his lame site, the p2p world is the same.
[quote comment="147308"]Everybody should use Torrentz.com instead of Isohunt. And to be honest I don’t understand why we should read this Asian’s opinion. He doesn’t have a site like thepiratebay,so, with or without his lame site, the p2p world is the same.[/quote]
One of the best comments here, no infact the best comment so far :D
Agree with ya 100% m8
Who cares about Isohunt anyway?
Never rely on one source. chances are that they never have everything u r looking for. use torrentz.
I’m confused still on why he called TPB admin a communist?
yeah, like TPB don’t make loads of cash.
LOLBOT: Perhaps they do, but it really doesn’t matter. The guys behind TPB actually stand for something, they are putting up a real fight. And they run a tracker of great importance.
I’m done with isoHunt.
isohunt sucks anyway…
I’m sad isohunt sort of sold out… I do see pirated counterparts.. Its just sad .. Isohunt is located in Canada is it not Gary?? Why dude why cave to them… Its just sad.. A good source has disintegrated to nothingness..
Yea, everything you said, except of course, the P2P part. All content providers will eventually embrace Internet distribution. It’s a matter of survival. However, there’s absolutely no compelling reason why the content will be distributed P2P. Besides, why would I’d share my bandwidth with a service that charges for downloads, unless if I get a cut!
Ok you tards:
1) My communist comment was sarcasm, sorry if it wasn’t obvious
2) We run 2 trackers on torrentbox.com and podtropolis.com. Torrentbox’s tracker should be 2nd biggest after TPB’s, and I have always commended their large tracker (although we have different stance on copyright)
3) Capitalist sold out? Incredible. TPB made more from porn ads and I have always said no to them. But lets not point fingers again. All sites of size we are talking about makes money, and not money you have to pay for so STFU.
4) For you ppl from the US, I’m fighting a much expensive lawsuit from the MPAA because of your stupid laws. For ppl not in the US asking why we are “caving in”, you don’t understand the complicated legal issues involved but I have my reasons, and the way we handle copyright issues and US laws will change eventually.
5) Say what you will about copyright, capitalism, so on and so forth but if you stand to reason, the intent of copyright _was_ to encourage the creative arts. Copyright laws need reform, not abolishing. And the only way forward is together with copyright holders. Afterall, you don’t get to share what is not made.
I don’t know if I can explain any clearer.
And Torrentfreak, shame on your baseless sensationalized commenting yet again. WTF did I say we are after “MPAA-approved movie downloads”? Copyright and all things that can be copyrighted is far bigger than MPAA and their movies, Long Tail et al. and I didn’t refer to want to work with any copyright holder in particular, just in general. Stop putting words in my mouth.
6) And why P2P for paid downloads? Because P2P is cheaper and faster than server-client (regular HTTP) and part of that cost saving will be passed to you who pay.
I hate Isohunt as much as the next person and I dont think this strategy will work for them - but in reference to some previous comments - there’s no need to bring racism into it - that doesn’t advance our argument in any way. It just highlights your own immaturity.
Wow … I wonder how much negativity would have been said if Brokep had said this instead of Gary? BitTorrent Inc. is already trying this (as stated above for those not paying attention) and no one’s been this negative to them?
The intent would be that the content you pay for would be better quality than the pirate versions, at a reasonable cost. Whether that is possible or not remains to be seen.
Of course people will continue to pirate stuff, that’s a fact of human nature. But some of us are willing to pay for legal copies after downloading a pirated copy of media that they liked.
I download a CD first. Then if I like it I pay for it. If I don’t like it I delete it. Same theory as people that borrow music/movies/books from their local libraries.
[quote comment="147396"]Ok you tards:
….[/quote]
You want to make us to believe that you are that Asian who runs IsoHunt. If that’s true, you should be ashamed by yourself. You made (and still make) money with us. When we visit your site, we are good, because maybe we will click your SPAM! Why in the hell you call us TARDS? Probably because we used your lame site?
Let me tell you something You shitty china face… Take your site and finger it deep right in your yellow ass you stupid gay. Don’t you realize that WITH or WITHOUT YOU is the same thing?
And now Go To Hell!
And with or without YOU, his site will undoubtedly make money. I doubt he cares.
IH,
I can’t agree with 6). P2P is only faster under particular circumstances, such as when there are a lot of seeders. Anyone familiar with torrent downloads knows that there’s usually a “window of opportunity” when a download is fast, reliable, and frankly, available. That’s just a consequence of the “social” nature of torrents.
Paying customers won’t tolerate slow downloads because they’re selection is six-months old and the original seeders have moved on.
[quote]but in reference to some previous comments - there’s no need to bring racism into it - that doesn’t advance our argument in any way.[/quote]
I agree, being racist over this is stupid and it makes one look ignorant.
[quote]1) My communist comment was sarcasm, sorry if it wasn’t obvious[/quote]
No matter who you are, incase you havn’t noticed, sarcasm is not the most easy thing to portray over the internet ;)
[quote]For ppl not in the US asking why we are “caving in”, you don’t understand the complicated legal issues involved but I have my reasons,[/quote]
I understand that facing a lawsuit is probably pretty scary and stressful.
Maybe you should move to sweden?
[quote]Afterall, you don’t get to share what is not made.[/quote]
Music will still be made without copyright. Just there will be a lot less annoying pop stars that are in it for the money and a lot more real artists who can use the internet to get their music out to the world. Now, as it is, those real artists have a hard time getting through to the world on the internet because of the profit driven people.
[quote]6) And why P2P for paid downloads? Because P2P is cheaper and faster than server-client (regular HTTP) and part of that cost saving will be passed to you who pay.[/quote]
While technically true, savings for companies are rarely ever passed down to the people who buy stuff.
Companies will think “With lower costs for us, we have two choices: Keep the same profits and make the price more fair, or keep the price the same and make more profits”. Which do you think they will choose?
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