Change isn't always bad, Hollywood

So the news was released yesterday that the popular BitTorrent search engine “Isohunt” has been slated to shutter indefinitely.  It has been embroiled in a heated lawsuit for over 7 years now, over its supposed liability in helping other find pirated copyrighted material.  After years and years of these court battle over the copyright infringements with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Isohunt has finally agreed to settle.

Along with shutting down Isohunt, founder Gary Fung has agreed to shut down three other sites that redirect to it: Podtropolis, TorrentBox, and Edtk-it.com under the terms of their settlement.  This is probably fair, given that he’s already agreed to shut down the site that they all link to; they serve no real purpose otherwise.  Fung has also agreed to pay $110 million in damages, which I find to be ridiculous.  The site itself has not even made that much money in its 10.5 years of existence, and I’m talking just pure revenue, not even profit after expenses.  There’s absolutely no way Fung/Isohunt could pay these damages, which is just another complaint I have with the culture of lawsuits in America today. 

Fung said in a blog post yesterday “It’s sad to see my baby go.  But I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remaind faithful.  10.5 years of isoHunt has been a long journey by any business definition, and forever in Internet startup time.  It started as a programming hobby in my university days that has become so, so much more.  It’s been a learning experience beyond what I imagined.”  It’s funny to think how many university hobby startups turn into these enormously big deals on the internet, whether for good or bad reasons.  Regardless of your opinion on piracy, I would imagine it to be quite difficult not to marvel at the growth of Fung’s little side project.

Isohunt first came under fire from the MPAA in 2006 when it filed a copyright lawsuit against the BitTorrent search engine.  The MPAA tried for years to convince the federal court that Isohunt was liable for the copyright violations committed by its users, because it provided the access and means (and perhaps, implied consent?) to do so.  The suit was officially lost for Isohunt when it lost its appeal against the MPAA and a judge ruled that Fung had “red flag” knowledge of copyright infringements taking place on the site.

Being one of the most popular BitTorrent sites online (44.2 millions peers, 13.7 million active torrents), this is a serious blow to the internet pirating community, or as they prefer to be thought of, those who believe everything on the internet should be free and available to those that want it.  The Pirate Bay still remains at large and in its own series of lawsuits, and it is still THE most popular BitTorrent site out there, but this remains just another move backwards for the community in general, in my opinion. 

This is just another win for the industry that doesn’t want to change or adapt to changing times, and another hit to the freedom of information sharing.  Rather than keep up with the times and work with their audience, they continue to use outdated and disliked tactics to ensure they continue squeezing as much money out of people as possible.  And in fact, the more they continue to use the methods, the more they create the desire to fight against them anyway one can in their audience, so it remains a vicious cycle that likely won’t stop any time soon.