isoHunt Takes on the CRIA in Court
Written by Ernesto on March 11, 2009Just a week after the Pirate Bay trial ended, another site finds itself up against the music industry. IsoHunt, one of the leading BitTorrent sites, is fighting out a dispute with the CRIA in court today. Of course, everything can be followed through Twitter.
Last September, isoHunt decided to sue the CRIA looking for confirmation that the site is not doing anything illegal. In an act of self defense, isoHunt owner Gary Fung filed a petition (pdf) asking 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 at the time.
IsoHunt has asked the court to decide whether .torrent files, and BitTorrent search engines in particular, are infringing copyright or not. In other words, 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?
Today, isoHunt and the CRIA appeared in court. While isoHunt asked the court to rule that they do not break any laws, the CRIA is demanding a full trial against the BitTorrent site.
This landmark case might be the one to define how files can be distributed online. 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. In court today, they showed that a filetype:torrent search for Coldplay on Google returns plenty of torrent files, similar to a search on isoHunt.
All isoHunt does is index other BitTorrent trackers and indexers, without human intervention. The files that can be found on isoHunt are scattered all over the Internet, and even these files are just metadata.
IsoHunt founder Gary Fung told TorrentFreak that the judge converted their petition into action at the end of today’s hearing. “He just thinks the issues are too complicated and consequences far reaching legally and technically, and a full trial is more appropriate for discovering all documents,” Gary said.
“The important issue is not about the complexity or ramifications of our case which we won’t dispute, but rather CRIA liking to use full action and discovery because it’s costly for all parties and the court and was exactly why we decided to bring our petition first for efficiency before they were going to sue with an action,” Gary told TorrentFreak in a response. IsoHunt is likely to appeal the order for conversion.
To be continued.
Previously: Top Artists Strike Back at Greedy Music Labels
Next: Littleshoot Adds BitTorrent Capabilities to Any Browser
35 Responses
they actually were in court a long time ago.
and this case has been ongoing for some time.
hopefully the p2pnet decision applies as it was sent linking in canada isn’t illegal in other words as to what one judge said which makes sense
“it is up to the user to choose to goto any site that may violate copyright”
in other words torrent files and trackers give you a choice , if you choose too, its your problem.
Add to that that canada has a cdr levy for us to download, it makes logical sense to allow us to download as we have contributed over 300 million in levies to date.
So dont come here mister actor and say canada aint paying you go whine to the CRIA whose america overlord running it ( yup a yankie running a canuck organization) isnt paying you go bother him and cry me a river.
IsoHunt clearly has no tracker of its own – clearly the CRIA cannot win, or else the law must be stretched a great amount.
i think it was smart to take preemptive action, and not wait like TPB for shit to happen. Good job Isohunt, fight hard. By the way, Who the fuck is CRIA
The CRIA?
-.-
Come on, I live in Canada and I can guarantee that 90% or more of the population does not want them to exist. Is this a democracy or not?
^^^ LOL who cares about mininova. Piratebay rules!!!
@4: stfu.
Wow, really CRIA?
I’m just speechless.
Good luck in court isoHunt. Not that you need it, since they’re not going to be able to pin anything on you.
@503i
haha your an idiot for sure
more like 90% want them to exist
the only people that dont want them are the CRIA , remember the backlash on bill c-61
100000 people form canada signed up to a facebook group.
also p2pnet won the linking court case already this will merely CONFIRM that case and as i said the judge said like how law should be and WE PAY A LEVY
SO to whiney 503i
go cry me a river
also due to CRIA stance on lawsuits like hte riaa in states , a big group of canuck musicans broke away and formed htere own group wiht a NO SUE IDEAL
it was lead by the bare naked ladies
CRIA is the wannabe version of hte riaa in canada
it was run by an american whose 1st words were total hostility and defamatory to all of canada.
personally right back at ya mister greedy pants.
big middle finger right form canada
im betting that the Canadian court system will cower on the decision and find some other bs to dismiss the case.
many of you ppl think this is coming from the usa (RIAA) it is coming from the RIAA witch is from the usa but there money is coming from europe not the usa… the usa is broke… the filthy rich of europe controls the usa today and have for years already they have just used the us to fight its battles because it made sense.
Wow, how can they even think of sueing isohunt?
They won’t get any evidence because there fucking isn’t any.
Hosting search engine site isn’t illegal.
Now, slap yourself, do 10 push ups and hide in dark corner RIAA
Yeah, screw Mininova, no one has a right to make money! They should just provide the service for nothing.
Twat.
Mind you, anyone who protests that TPB isn’t raking in loads of money should take a look at this, ROFL.
@Nova (11):
Can you actually read that report?
It only shows their company grew from 2006 to 2007 but it didn’t show that they mad huge profits (their “company cash grew by 200000 euro but that could be because they bought a lot of new servers in 2008 and not in 2007).
thought this article woz about isoHunt ha not Mininova
Isohunt, TPB and Mininova are all so much crap and only n00bs use them at all because they don’t know any better.
Private trackers all the way! This is where the elite users play and don’t we just own you public tracker users.
Booya!! FTW!!
@boner_man
you twit, this effects all of the BT community and the private ones will be hunted down and squashed like the hidden cockroaches you are.
so BOOYA to your data being forcably taken IF we @ ISOhunt lose this..
@ Boner_Man
You’re the n00b,what a stupid statement
Im a member on most private sites Waffles, Scenetorrents, TorrentLeech all of them
You’re a dreamer if you think a member of MPAA or the feds can’t get themselves an invite to these sites.
Congrats on posting the stupidest comment on Torrent Freak today
FACE!!!!!!!!!
hahaha
what makes you think they arn’t already members to those “exclusive” sites.
just because the IP’s of the MPAA/RIAA/WTFe are blacklisted, that doesn’t mean that the employees’s IP’s are. You can’t possibly know their home computer’s IP’s and don’t give me that whole “Bill Clinton DMCA feds can’t visit” horsecrap either. That was proven false back when DC was popular. So, you wanna get pwnt more?
Isakill smells imo.
sped, i’ll choke you when you get back from work ;)
@ chet, no. 10
“many of you ppl think this is coming from the usa (RIAA) it is coming from the RIAA witch is from the usa but there money is coming from europe not the usa… the usa is broke… the filthy rich of europe controls the usa today and have for years already they have just used the us to fight its battles because it made sense.”
Wtf have you been smoking, whatever it is, I’ll take an ounce!
the “Filthy rich” Europe doesn’t do F-all in the USA, let alone sponsor the RIAA LOL!
IF anyone currently has a “hand” in the USA it would be China + OPEC countries, but even that’s highly doubtable.
Now.. chill out, relax, have a beer ‘n popcorn and enjoy the show. Let’s see how hard the CRIA burns.
Yeah, i live in the UK chet… where’s my fucking money? Apparently you owe me some..?
No, before the recession it was $2 to the £. Now it’s like 1.47 during the recession.
I miss the days when everything was so cheap to import from the states :’(
The countries with energy control the UK.
90% of our energy is sold to us, only 10% comes from the drying up offshore rigs.
If these countries were to pull the plug on us, the UK would burn out in a day. Millions would die, and we’d become a third world country over night.
So yeah, we do whatever it is they want, whilst pretending that we’re still rulers of the world. Haha.
It’s not going to change any time soon either. If the UK decides to build a nuclear power plant or two without the okay from France, EDF cuts us out. :(
Anyway.. err… yay isoHunt!
man f*** mininova 24/7
I sure hope Fung wins or everything including things outside of the “torrent world” will be affected. If they managed to lose, big companies like Google and such will be targeted next; a search engine is a search engine is a search engine… pretty much.
@23
answer me this why would they have pranced obama in europe before he was even the democratic lead? that appearance was staged and not for the americans!!!
we need those idiots in yahoo answers who don’t know why they can’t play a .torrent file in media player so that we have a forest of ip’s to hide in.
LMAO @ 10
wtf? stop watching Fox news!
Isohunt is my favorite no.1 torrent search site, second is PirateBay.
i18n support in this site is wonderful, not the interface, but the search of files inside torrents and torrent names with different encodings.
This means it provides results where all the others fail/can’t parse/can’t show far-east characters.
Mirror : http://backupurl.com/wpmrna
Alright! Way to go IsoHunt! You rule!
RT
http://www.privacy.at.tc
Criminals belong in court or under my heels!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
ROFLMAO @ http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Thanks for that link, that blog is hilarious! :D
Always been a “fan” of good ol’ Stevo and his apopolectic fits of enthusiasm and geek rages :D :D
“Fair use is an affirmative defense, but its application will vary greatly depending on the facts and circumstances of the case. Courts apply a four part balancing test examining the scope of infringement, the effect on the copyright owner’s rights (e.g. his or her ability to sell the work), the amount of the work copied, and the purpose of the infringement. Courts have held that a non-commercial use is not fair use when it has a substantial market effect. In cases with a small-scale impact, courts are more receptive to arguments regarding the effect on the copyright owner’s market or potential market. Fair use is used mainly in the United States. Other common law jurisdictions have the more rigidly defined defence of fair dealing, while civil law jurisdictions also have similar defences.”
CRIA is nothing more than lobby group for the US RIAA. They do not represent the Canadian music industry. In fact most in the industry here find them very intrusive and arrogant.
As I have said before, there is nothing wrong with downloading. Don’t fear the pirate, fear corporate greed!
Don’t see isoHunt losing this one; as someone else mentioned, they don’t even have their own tracker. If isoHunt is deemed liable for their .torrents, so should Google be.
I love seeing these organizations say “Oh, we won’t sue Google, they comply with our requests.” So what? isoHunt attempts to comply as well, but just as with Google there are far too many people and too many links to “get them all”. In the end, all it takes is one link for me to download the stuff I want.
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