isoHunt Sues the CRIA to Legalize BitTorrent Sites
Written by Ernesto on September 05, 2008Following Demonoid and QuebecTorrent, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has threatened isoHunt with legal action. However, isoHunt has decided to launch a preemptive strike, as it turns the tables and sues the CRIA instead.
The CRIA is known for taking on BitTorrent sites. In the past year they have threatened Demonoid and other BitTorrent sites, and taken legal action against QuebecTorrent. Now, they have set their sights on isoHunt, one of the largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, but this might just backfire.
In May 2008, isoHunt received a Cease and Desist letter from the CRIA, in which they demanded that isoHunt founder Gary Fung should take the site offline. If Fung didn’t comply, the CRIA said it would pursue legal action, and demand $20,000 for each sound recording the site has infringed.
A similar tactic worked against Demonoid, but the isoHunt founder didn’t back down so easily. “We have since tried to come to an understanding, but just as with the MPAA in the US, they ignored our offers of cooperation by the take down of .torrent links to their content files, so long as they provide sufficient identification,” Gary Fung told TorrentFreak.
Fung has pointed out that, like most other BitTorrent sites, isoHunt has a Copyright Policy, and takes down .torrent files when they receive an appropriate request. The CRIA simply ignored this, even though they have sent correct takedown notices to isoHunt before (and isoHunt complied), and continued to threaten with legal action.
As an act of self-defense, isoHunt has decided to sue the CRIA instead, and today Fung will file a petition (pdf) to ask the Court of British Columbia to confirm that isoHunt –and sister sites Torrentbox and Podtropolis– do not infringe copyright. “This is our preemptive strike with a narrowly defined petition for Declaratory Relief that we do not infringe, in anticipation they are going to file their own lawsuit that we do infringe (their copyright),” Fung told TorrentFreak.
“Our petition summarizes BitTorrent technology, its open nature and a whole ecosystem of websites and operators that has developed around it, that CRIA does not own copyright to all files distributed over BitTorrent or on isoHunt websites, and we seek legal validation that we can continue to innovate within this emerging BitTorrent ecosystem on the Internet.”
“Think of this as a follow up to the QuebecTorrent case,” Fung says. “We intend to take this all the way up to the Canadian Supreme Court unless CRIA settles with us out of court in any reasonable way,” Fung added.
This is the first case worldwide where a court will be asked to decide whether .torrent files, and BitTorrent search engines in particular, are infringing copyright or not. Among other things, isoHunt argues that they are just a search engine, like Google, and that they have no control over the files they find elsewhere on the web. The site is indexing other BitTorrent trackers and indexers, without human intervention, and allows its users to find content that is scattered across the web.
So, should BitTorrent search engines be held liable for the .torrent files that might point to copyrighted data? If so, what does this mean for other search engines, and sites such as YouTube? This landmark case might be the one to define how files can be distributed online, let’s hope the Court of British Columbia will make the right decision.
Previously: Download Torrents Instantly with Instant-Torrents
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77 Responses
Come fuck me!
Hm, definitely an interesting tactic. Could decide the future of the network, or…could end up just another blow-off case that results in nothing.
Great news, dontate to the legal fund now!!
Whatever it takes i guess.
Last! until someone else says something…
That’s a defense I can believe in. I’m donating to the legal fund.
Isohunt just wasted money on a court case it’s never going to win
Indeed, whatever it takes.
Well, in stating that they are similar to Google and Youtube… There’s a chance that they might win. It really depends on the personal views of the people making the final decision in court.
isoHunt just might win too. If you look at the dismal track record for any CRIA related cases in Canada, the courts have more common sense than they do in America.
Time to donate…
Fucking good luck mates… youve got my ocmplete support
Serve him right!
Time for a generous donation
At last someone grew a pair and decided enough of the bullshit… lets fight back.
Wheres my feking credit card? this is a worthy cause!
Come on guys, someones finally taking a stance, back them!
Everyone needs to stand behind isoHunt.
Why are there organizations like CRIA? When someone buys something, they feel that it’s their right to do what they want. To share something is like a smoking addiction, to some.
You could argue that the people don’t have to buy, but it’s in human nature to buy things, it’s automatic, no matter what. It really just doesn’t make sense to try to hold on to a property, the people will know at least, who the original author is, shouldn’t that be enough? And to top it off there will still be some type of profit regardless.
It’s just really stupid to ask someone to buy something and expect them to not want to share it, or whatever they feel they should be able to do with it. Just because the internet has given people more freedoms to actually choose without blindly buying before trying something, now companies are after everyone, even sharers that just want to simply share what they pay for. It’s definitely evident that no company cares about its customers, they only care about themselves and their well being.
…they’re already being sued by the mpaa, its only fitting that a countersuit on their home turf should be the next logical step. The mpaa fight is a remnant of their u.s. hosting days, so instead of waiting for that to end and possibly a likeminded suit by the cria, get the boot in first. If they win it may very well be the end of the mpaa’s case, if they lose, well, no doubt it wont bode well for their u.s. legal fight. Its a bold, the stakes are high, and the winner takes all.
Stick it to the man!
Solution — WiPEER.
Time to make a generic internet post saying I’m donating a large sum of money in the hopes that I might encourage someone else to actually donate a large some of money which I can then feel I’m somehow a part of. Since I can’t confirm whether I actually encouraged someone to follow through or not, I’ll just assume I did and enjoy my warm fuzzies…
@21
Yep, you do that…
isohunt has more balls than all you private site pussies
id rather donate to pay for the electricity to fry your asses on the chair you commie scumbags
@21 02:18 by Anonymous
LOL, yep, I suspect you’re about right there.
Really though IMO it’s ridiculous that use of the justice system should even require money to put up a defence. Of course the media companies know this only too well and they sure do like to use it to their advantage against those unlikely to be able to put up a defence.
Best of luck, isoHunt.
Is Hollywood that desperate they have to send trolls writing us members of the Consumer Liberation front , Death threats?
It’s always a great argument, we are simply a search engine, and as technically minded people we can see it’s obvious, however it’s all down to the impartial technical advisors the court employs to advise those making the decisions. IANAL, but I assume that a case like this is simply down to those involved to argue their points be it in person or face to face, it’s not a trial by jury, so have to hope they get a really solid and impartial technical resource to explain about how torrent searchers work, and not let the CRIA lawyers BS those setting the final precedent.
Should be interesting, none the less.
Believe it or not i’m donating. I’m pretty cheap, but this seems like a good cause. I don’t care if they win or not, we need somebody to stand up to big media.
I believe one day torrents will own.
[Off topic]
Demonid registrations open NOW
Well, if they loose the IsoHunt lawyers should get funny and sue Google. I mean, Google indexes torrents too (http://google.ca/search?q=filetype%3Atorrent) and with their own case stating a searchengine is not allowed to have those Google will have a hard case defending.
However, who want to take on Google in court?!
isohunt is one of my favorite sites, because of the way it indexes both torrent names and content plus it has superb foreign language support and multitrackered .torrents
why dont they (mpaa etc) just embrace this new technology instead of kicking up such a fuss because they cant control it… they must know by now that its a game they just cant win.
this should be interesting
What? The CRIA? Wow another 4 letter agency. Holy cow man.
Jiff
http://www.anonymize.kr.tc
They better know what they’re doing. In a horrible cliche, the fate of the Internet very well might be at stake in this case. If CRIA wins, there’s gonna be a lot of problems.
I wish that the software companies would use torrent files to distribute their free and try-out software. I like the way the torrent system works much better than the usual download practices.
torrentfreak needs to get sued.
rofl.
Who listens to canadian music anyway
They should just point out that any search engine can do the exact same thing that isohunt and torrentspy can do.
lolfag
Freedom.
@27 Thankfully as time passes, those technical advisors and even judges will be of a generation where they themselves downloaded music off bittorent sites and will likely side with them. Hopefully sooner then later.
@36 Yeah really, having to wait in queues and browse through 5 after logging in instead of clicking on a single link is annoying. And they wonder why pc sales of video games are not what they used to be.
It doesn´t matter. The important thing is to have a TV-set and a book like this one: http://www.unusualprofit.com
try searching for:
“filename” ext:torrent
on google and you will sometimes find more torrents there than on isohunt. so i guess google will be taken down next?
homo
hopefully this case will take the technical merits of bittorrent namely that it breaks the file into pieces and therefore no seeder is distributing a fully working copy of the file.
Cant wait for this to start
http://TehConnection.eu
#47: that’s like saying because a couple thousand assailants repeatedly gave a victim paper cuts until he died of blood loss none of them are accountable for murder because no single individual actually killed him.
no, piracy does not equal murder but the metaphor is valid in showing how stupid and pompous this oft-held pirate retort really is.
definitely i’m going to donate “few” bucks for this case.
If they MPAA et al win and push torrents out of business then a new superior technology will emerge and with it being anonymous will make it very difficult to pursue users
CRIA=MPAA. There’s nothing “Canadian” about this outfit and they’re not even remotely out to help ANY artists ever.
nooooooooo, i love isohunt, i even donate!! please dont lose. isohunt is the best torrent site ever!!
It’s pretty simple:
Any legal action should also involve mailers, phone companies and so on… just because the torrent service IS equivalent to those.
Has anyone filled a suit against any post office? They also can mail copyrighted goods…and please nobody tell me they won’t…
Torrents are only an envelope!
Suit the internet?
How? violating the content?
It’s all in bad will no matter what the reality may be.
Remember Digital Research… M$ threaten them with a legal suit though M$ could not win… but Digital Research would go bankrupt with the legal process fees. Apparently this is usual in some countries where justice is expensive.
What did I just said?!?
The legal system used to commit crimes? Oh cruel world! What you have become!
Bye!
Win. Logically, there is no way they can lose the case, but then again, the CRIA has its absurd tactics.
I just want to say FUCK YOU, FUCK BELL & ROGERS FOR THROTTLING. FUCK THE CONSERVITIVE BUSH PUPPETS WE HAVE FOR A GOVERMENT. AND FOR NOT DOING ANYTHING ABOUT ISP THROTTLING, WHERE DO I DONATE MONEY FOR SUCH A LAWSUIT. I TOTALLY SUPPORT SUING THE CRIA.
We will stand and fight, to the last man…
If people who do download illegal content are bleeding the music, and movie industries dry then why are they able to increase their profits? And does anyone know if you can sue a record label for putting one decent song on a disc of 16, or perhaps the movie industry for putting together such wonderful trailers that you go pay ur 14$ for a ticket and ur 14 bucks for snacks only to find out that the that trailer WAS the movie except with another hour and a half with filler? The sooner the media tycoons adapt the happier everyone, including them will be and if isohunt and all other sites like it are shut down I guess ill just have to wait for a new software for a little while…..
was just being facetious. For the record as well I admit I do torrent movies, usually cams, but if I feel the movie is worth my money I do pay for it I have a dvd library numbering 250-300 movies. Sure against the law, but my conscience is clear.
Donated. This is just plain common sense. CRIA wanted 20k per file on a website that doesn’t deliberately distribute any content at all!
Decriminalizing all non-commercial file sharing and forcing the market to adapt is not just the best solution. It’s the only solution, unless we want an ever more extensive control of what citizens do on the Internet.
when CRIA’s wife slept with another man, did they sue the guy or divorce his wife?
if u buy a pack of cigarette can u shared with other/me -_-?
This is a world of freedom, freedom of information and speech
While ISOHUNT and so many other like sites are just there for users like us to share our interest.
We create music of our own and share it and if you don’t like then piss off don’t listen to it.
If the owner don’t like it they can create some kind of security to tackle this problem, if they can’t “THEN THEY R FUCKED”
For me i get free stuff that all i care in return donation donation dontation
Canadian elections are coming up. It’s about time Canadians started to do something politically imo and end this shit once and for all.
Time to kick ass
ISOHUNT rules !!!
Let’s sue Google for indexing my website without notifying me.
Isohunt IS a search engine, damn ignorant Judges!!
I bet those judges have NOT even tried to download a .torrent to actually even take a look at what it is.
Fire back until MPAA says “No Mas Uncle, my ass hirts!!!!”
Rightly said.. As far as i am concerned, isohunt is just an interface, the users are the ones who are sharing there belongings. And if copyright don’t allow then fuck copyright.
Geez… the studies done in Canada, the US, the UK, Sweden… none of it matters, right? The ones that say that sharing doesn’t impact their business, I mean–and not the LEK study which had flawed data, methodology, and conclusions.
This is about controlling the market, plain and simple. It’s not about the actual money, it’s about controlling the population’s ability to think for itself.
Such failures to reason seem like the perfect death knell for such organizations.
Now lets see Google spend a few bucks and help support isoHunt. Reason, Google can link you to more torrents than any site on this earth. To those of you thinking private sites are the way to go, they back down quicker than hell, take Demonoid for example, one little yelp from the CRIA and their founder runs for the hills. Good on you Gary Fung, your got some humbungous balls to fight back!!
FUCK YEAH.
SUE THEIR ASSES.
Fist in the air!
I think IsoHunt can win this one!
Strike first, way to go!
As already stated: can we all sue the CRIA (or other bodies) for allowing a rubbish album consisting of one or two good tracks and ten or so crap ones to be (mis)sold? Or paying to watch a movie that turned out to be an crap extension of a free TV trailer? We get little opportunity to experience a whole album (or movie) prior to parting with our cash (besides filesharing of course), and the last time I tried to take a CD back to Woolworths or get a refund from the cinema on the grounds that the content was shit, they didn’t want to know.
The exeption to the above is Céline Dion. I have no idea how she’s managed to make more than one album. Somebody somewhere keeps buying the stuff, and after paying for more than one album, you only have yourselves to blame.
LMAO 15 is good sheet! Ill second that!
@36
Actully there are several mmo sites and some program sites that allow you to download their stuff via torrents.. ^w^ goes alot faster and it’s nice
anonymous rules ur the freaking site
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