BitTorrent search engine isoHunt has reversed the change it made earlier this year, where all US visitors were redirected to a ‘lite’ version of the site to prevent it from being shut down. With this move, isoHunt founder Gary Fung hopes to regain some of the visitors he lost due to the change. Meanwhile, isoHunt is awaiting the appeal of the permanent injunction the District Court of California issued in their case against the MPAA.
In a few months TorrentFreak turns five, and leading up to that milestone we will occasionally look back at how the BitTorrent landscape has changed over the years. Although there is no doubt that BitTorrent has more than quintupled its user base since 2005, there have been only a handful of sites serving a large slice of the masses.
BitTorrent search engine isoHunt is the first foreign website to partner with New York Attorney General Cuomo in an effort to keep the Internet clean from child pornography. By using the Attorney General’s hash value database to filter its search results, isoHunt will prevent thousands of images from spreading on BitTorrent.
BitTorrent search engine isoHunt is fighting the permanent injunction the District Court of California issued in their case against the MPAA. According to isoHunt’s owner, a site-wide filter based on a list of keywords provided by the movie industry is an unworkable solution that would impede freedom of speech and bring China-style censorship to the U.S.
Google has won its court case against Viacom, where it was facing a $1 billion claim for allowing users to upload copyrighted clips to YouTube. The landmark case is expected to have a major impact on future cases dealing with the responsibilities of the operators of user-generated media libraries, including BitTorrent sites.
The US District Court of California has issued a permanent injunction against the BitTorrent search engine isoHunt, forcing it to shut down in the United States. IsoHunt is expected to block all access to US visitors in response to the decision, but no action has been taken thus far.
IsoHunt has been one of the leading BitTorrent search engines since 2004. Despite facing legal battles with the MPAA and CRIA, isoHunt keeps on expanding and adding more torrents to its index. It now lists nearly 5 million unique torrents, tripling in size compared to last year.
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