TorrentFreak

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.

Following legal pressure brought by the MPAA, BitTorrent search engine isoHunt has decided to redirect all visitors from the United States to a Lite version of the site. With this action, isoHunt hopes to prevent a judicial order which would require the site to implement a mandatory filter and remove torrents based on a list of ‘banned words’.

A United States court wants isoHunt to stop inducing copyright infringement via torrents that can be found through the popular BitTorrent search engine. The proposed injunction would require isoHunt to censor its site based on a list of keywords. A similar measure led to the quasi-shutdown of Mininova last year.

Following a crackdown on dozens of local file-sharing sites last year, it now appears that China has added the Canada-based BitTorrent site isoHunt to their Great Firewall. IsoHunt reports that the site has only seen a few hundred Chinese visitors in recent days, a 99% decrease in traffic in compared to a week ago.