Moonlight Graham Posted October 19, 2013 Report Posted October 19, 2013 A Vancouver resident has agreed to shut down his popular downloading website and pay a $110-million fine after settling a long legal fight with the Motion Picture Association of America. Gary Fung ran isohunt.com, a search engine for BitTorrent files, which helped users find virtually every type of copyrighted material, including music, movies, computer software, ebooks and pornography. The MPAA, which represents Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros., originally launched its legal challenge of isoHunt in 2006. http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/18/canadian-bittorrent-site-isohunt-to-shut-down-pay-us110-million-fine/?__lsa=faf6-fa54 A sad day. 95% of my torrent downloads came from this site Luckily there are dozens of other torrent sites available to take its place in my heart. Popular torrent site Demonoid was shut down similarly last year, but in my opinion this isoHunt shutdown is the most significant free file-sharing shutdown since Napster. I'm not surprised it was shut down. But I am surprised its programmer/creator was a Chinese man from Vancouver! Quote "All generalizations are false, including this one." - Mark Twain Partisanship is a disease of the intellect.
bush_cheney2004 Posted October 19, 2013 Report Posted October 19, 2013 (edited) I'm glad it was shutdown and hope for more aggressive prosecution and fines for other torrent thieves and pirates. Ironically, the torrent "seeders" call those who don't share "leechers". Edited October 19, 2013 by bush_cheney2004 Quote Economics trumps Virtue.
Shady Posted October 19, 2013 Report Posted October 19, 2013 Why is it a sad day? Because you can't steal anymore? Quote
Guest Posted October 19, 2013 Report Posted October 19, 2013 (edited) Did he make any money from the site? $110 million is quite the fine. Edited October 19, 2013 by bcsapper Quote
Moonlight Graham Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Posted October 19, 2013 (edited) Did he make any money from the site? $110 million is quite the fine. I'm sure he made some money from advertising. I'd imagine he'd have to file bankruptcy. I don't think it's a "fine" as much as civil damages to be paid to the film and other companies for all the illegal downloading and revenue lost. Edited October 19, 2013 by Moonlight Graham Quote "All generalizations are false, including this one." - Mark Twain Partisanship is a disease of the intellect.
Moonlight Graham Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Posted October 19, 2013 Why is it a sad day? Because you can't steal anymore? From that site, yes. People who pay for media off ie: Netflix and iTunes are chumps, with the exception of supporting smaller artists and businesses. If you aren't downloading off of torrent sites it's probably because you don't know how to, not because you're a valiant champion of law and order. I know a guy who spends thousands of dollars on his DVD collection because he "likes the fancy cardboard covers the DVD's come in". Quote "All generalizations are false, including this one." - Mark Twain Partisanship is a disease of the intellect.
Wilber Posted October 19, 2013 Report Posted October 19, 2013 From that site, yes. People who pay for media off ie: Netflix and iTunes are chumps, with the exception of supporting smaller artists and businesses. If you aren't downloading off of torrent sites it's probably because you don't know how to, not because you're a valiant champion of law and order. I know a guy who spends thousands of dollars on his DVD collection because he "likes the fancy cardboard covers the DVD's come in". I don't out of principle. I believe people are entitled to be paid for what they produce. Without them, you would have nothing to steal. Quote "Never trust a man who has not a single redeeming vice". WSC
bush_cheney2004 Posted October 19, 2013 Report Posted October 19, 2013 From that site, yes. People who pay for media off ie: Netflix and iTunes are chumps, with the exception of supporting smaller artists and businesses. If you aren't downloading off of torrent sites it's probably because you don't know how to, not because you're a valiant champion of law and order. No, plenty of people know how to steal media via bit torrents, but have no need or desire to do so. My time is too valuable to waste it baby-sitting torrent downloads and virus infections. I guess some people can't afford to pay for content legally, or are too cheap to do so. Quote Economics trumps Virtue.
Shady Posted October 19, 2013 Report Posted October 19, 2013 From that site, yes. People who pay for media off ie: Netflix and iTunes are chumps, with the exception of supporting smaller artists and businesses. If you aren't downloading off of torrent sites it's probably because you don't know how to, not because you're a valiant champion of law and order. I know a guy who spends thousands of dollars on his DVD collection because he "likes the fancy cardboard covers the DVD's come in". So people who don't break the law are chumps? It's a sad commentary on our society and reflects its gross degeneration. Quote
MiddleClassCentrist Posted October 19, 2013 Report Posted October 19, 2013 From that site, yes. People who pay for media off ie: Netflix and iTunes are chumps, with the exception of supporting smaller artists and businesses. If you aren't downloading off of torrent sites it's probably because you don't know how to, not because you're a valiant champion of law and order. I know a guy who spends thousands of dollars on his DVD collection because he "likes the fancy cardboard covers the DVD's come in". You are making a choice to access content which has been restricted by the content copyright holder who made the content. No one is holding a gun to your head, saying that you have to watch it. If you aren't going to pay for it, you can always NOT WATCH IT. I'm no saint when it comes to torrents but, I at least recognize that it is their right to sell it for a price and not my right to take it for free. Generally, I use them to preview content before buying (Video Games, Music). If it's good enough for me to experience, I go and pay money for it. Quote Ideology does not make good policy. Good policy comes from an analysis of options, comparison of options and selection of one option that works best in the current situation. This option is often a compromise between ideologies.
Moonlight Graham Posted October 20, 2013 Author Report Posted October 20, 2013 (edited) You are making a choice to access content which has been restricted by the content copyright holder who made the content. No one is holding a gun to your head, saying that you have to watch it. If you aren't going to pay for it, you can always NOT WATCH IT. I'm no saint when it comes to torrents but, I at least recognize that it is their right to sell it for a price and not my right to take it for free. Generally, I use them to preview content before buying (Video Games, Music). If it's good enough for me to experience, I go and pay money for it. Well, nowhere did I say people should have a right to illegally download copyrighted digital content. However, since I can, I don't feel much shame in doing so when it comes to Hollywood movies or big-name musicians etc. Hollywood films make insane revenues and profits just from box-office alone, so much so that a bunch of actors make over $50 mil per film, and Robert Downey Jr. made $75mil for The Avengers. So I'm not going to feel too bad cutting into their royalty cheques on the home-video front. Musicians have made paltry sums off their music sales for a long time now, and make their most money from touring, which I support, and often fork out a rip-off $40 for a concert t-shirt, so boo-hoo. Not that it's still right, but in terms of tragedies in this world it ranks somewhere near the bottom. It also doesn't hurt the overall economy whatsoever, since the $20 I save on a DVD is an extra $20 I spend on something else. As for small/indie films and musicians etc., they should always be supported with our dollars because they have to scrape out a living. Edited October 20, 2013 by Moonlight Graham Quote "All generalizations are false, including this one." - Mark Twain Partisanship is a disease of the intellect.
GostHacked Posted October 20, 2013 Report Posted October 20, 2013 I know a guy who spends thousands of dollars on his DVD collection because he "likes the fancy cardboard covers the DVD's come in". I still buy my music in CD format, I like the way it looks on my shelf. Also I've had hard drive crashes before and lost a lot of music. If I have them on CD, I can just rerip them. Quote
GostHacked Posted October 20, 2013 Report Posted October 20, 2013 No, plenty of people know how to steal media via bit torrents, but have no need or desire to do so. My time is too valuable to waste it baby-sitting torrent downloads and virus infections. I guess some people can't afford to pay for content legally, or are too cheap to do so. Viruses can come through the proper legal download sites too, don't kid yourself. Quote
Moonlight Graham Posted October 20, 2013 Author Report Posted October 20, 2013 Viruses can come through the proper legal download sites too, don't kid yourself. The risk of a virus coming through a movie or music download on torrents is extremely small. It's never ever happened to me. Community members will flag torrents with viruses too. Downloading from trusted sources will reduce the risk even further. I've only detected a virus once, and that was when downloading a computer program, but I just deleted it with no harm done. I still buy the occasional cd. As for losing content, I have an external harddrive and backup all my data occasionally. Everyone should be doing that, even for photos, home movies, and documents etc. Quote "All generalizations are false, including this one." - Mark Twain Partisanship is a disease of the intellect.
GostHacked Posted October 20, 2013 Report Posted October 20, 2013 The risk of a virus coming through a movie or music download on torrents is extremely small. It's never ever happened to me. Community members will flag torrents with viruses too. Downloading from trusted sources will reduce the risk even further. I've only detected a virus once, and that was when downloading a computer program, but I just deleted it with no harm done. I think I have downloaded things about a handful of times this year via bit torrent. As of now, many of my friends do it, and they just dump stuff on my drive. I still buy the occasional cd. As for losing content, I have an external harddrive and backup all my data occasionally. Everyone should be doing that, even for photos, home movies, and documents etc. I have a NAS for storage, but even with redundancy, things still fail. I have my most important stuff also backed up to yet another portable drive. I am also finding that I cannot find digital downloads of some older material. Even some new stuff I cannot find on a digital download. I have had music dumped on my drive and if I end up liking it, I go buy some CDs. Quote
kimmy Posted October 20, 2013 Report Posted October 20, 2013 A $110 million fine? Yikes. I guess it's going to be a while before he can afford to move out of mom's basement. -k Quote (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ Friendly forum facilitator! ┬──┬◡ﾉ(° -°ﾉ)
dre Posted October 20, 2013 Report Posted October 20, 2013 I've never used this site before, but it sounds to me like its just a search engine, and that they didnt actually host or sell any content. Iv seen a number of decisions similar to this recently and the direction is disturbing. Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
GostHacked Posted October 21, 2013 Report Posted October 21, 2013 I've never used this site before, but it sounds to me like its just a search engine, and that they didnt actually host or sell any content. Iv seen a number of decisions similar to this recently and the direction is disturbing. That is all torrent sites do. They hold no information other than an index of the torrents. They do not host them at all. Quote
dre Posted October 21, 2013 Report Posted October 21, 2013 That is all torrent sites do. They hold no information other than an index of the torrents. They do not host them at all. Yup. Its a bit like charging google with child pornography or beastiality because their web crawler spiders sites with some of that content. If this trend continues you are going to see the end of user generated content... even forums like this one. Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
TimG Posted October 21, 2013 Report Posted October 21, 2013 (edited) I've never used this site before, but it sounds to me like its just a search engine, and that they didnt actually host or sell any content. Iv seen a number of decisions similar to this recently and the direction is disturbing.It is a search engine that only provides links to illegal content. A suspect a childpornhunt.com site would be shutdown pretty quickly even if it did not actually host images of child porn. I don't see this a precedent that will affect general purpose search engines. Edited October 21, 2013 by TimG Quote
dre Posted October 21, 2013 Report Posted October 21, 2013 It is a search engine that only provides links to illegal content. A suspect a childpornhunt.com site would be shutdown pretty quickly even if it did not actually host images of child porn. I don't see this a precedent that will affect general purpose search engines. Never the less it does not host illegal content it just tells people where it has found some, or allows users create their own links. I personally think anyone should be able to post a link to anything. And like I said if you are going to criminalize the host of HTML links, then you are placing the owness on all services that host user content to validate ever single submission, and site the host user submitted content are going to disappear. Basically its like charging me for drug trafficing because I told you I saw a guy selling weed at the corner of 14th and Spruce. Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
Wilber Posted November 7, 2013 Report Posted November 7, 2013 Not quite. More like if you set up a website dedicated to helping people find their nearest drug dealers. Quote "Never trust a man who has not a single redeeming vice". WSC
Spiderfish Posted December 8, 2013 Report Posted December 8, 2013 As for small/indie films and musicians etc., they should always be supported with our dollars because they have to scrape out a living. The irony is that these artists generally offer their content for free or deeply discounted to gain exposure. Quote
dre Posted December 8, 2013 Report Posted December 8, 2013 Not quite. More like if you set up a website dedicated to helping people find their nearest drug dealers. Not really... A website commoditizes the activity but the real "act" is still the same. Someone is telling someone else where illegal services are available. If you sanction them you are criminalizing "speach". Torrent search engines do not host any content at all, and they dont steal any content at all. They just point users to different URL's. If you criminalize that activity you are opening up a huge can of worms. Google for examples provides links to hundreds of thousands of sites that have content thats illegal in various places. Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
Spiderfish Posted December 8, 2013 Report Posted December 8, 2013 I don't out of principle. I believe people are entitled to be paid for what they produce. Without them, you would have nothing to steal. I believe they should be paid as well. The fortunate side of illegal digital downloading is that it has forced change within the industry of the production and distribution model. This combined with the incredible advancements in home recording and editting technology has opened up the potential for all artists. Profit is no longer solely the domain of the big production companies. Quote
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