BitTorrent search site IsoHunt will shut down, pay MPAA $110 million

[woodyear99]

RIP isohunt

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/bittorrent-site-isohunt-will-shut-down-pay-mpaa-110-million/


isoHunt, a search engine for BitTorrent files founded more than a decade ago, has agreed today to shut down all its operations worldwide. The company, founded by Canadian Gary Fung, has also accepted a judgment that it must pay the movie studios that sued it $110 million. It's not clear how much of that the studios will actually be able to collect.

Fung gave up his long legal fight just weeks from having to defend his site in federal court; a jury trial was scheduled to start on November 5 in a Los Angeles federal court. Earlier court rulings had already determined that Fung was liable for "inducing" copyright infringement, so the court trial would have largely been about damage control. The MPAA had stated studio lawyers would have sought as much as $600 million had the case gone to trial.
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[UltimateGamer]

RIP isohunt

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/bittorrent-site-isohunt-will-shut-down-pay-mpaa-110-million/


isoHunt, a search engine for BitTorrent files founded more than a decade ago, has agreed today to shut down all its operations worldwide. The company, founded by Canadian Gary Fung, has also accepted a judgment that it must pay the movie studios that sued it $110 million. It's not clear how much of that the studios will actually be able to collect.

Fung gave up his long legal fight just weeks from having to defend his site in federal court; a jury trial was scheduled to start on November 5 in a Los Angeles federal court. Earlier court rulings had already determined that Fung was liable for "inducing" copyright infringement, so the court trial would have largely been about damage control. The MPAA had stated studio lawyers would have sought as much as $600 million had the case gone to trial.
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Damn that's some terrible news!!! Still my go to site for hard to find stuff ... gone. And poor fung, after all he did, to be bullied by those bastards in the MPAA! I sincerely wish him the best. RIP isohunt.

[TriniXaeno]

lol, poor fung? After all he did???

Which is what, encourage or "induce" as the lawsuit put it....copyright infringement on a global scale?

Hardly the stuff of Robin Hood

They (industry watch dogs) have been targeting apps and sites that are fostering the digital piracy culture for decades and many have gone down as a result.

Fully expect that trend to continue.

I'm surprised they lasted that long.

[MessiaaH]

There is one major problem with he fight against movie and music piracy.
A problem steam all but solve in the gaming space.

Content available digitally, and good deals.

If I could have paid for and digital download Original Bluray Content, I wouldn't have need to "acquire" another movie again. I would spend meh money to get it. Cause even when I spend meh money to buy a Real BLURAY, d first thing I does do when I get it, is rip it...

Same goes for audio. When I buy a music disc, d very first thing I do is rip it, then pack way d disc in a box someway.

With sites like http://www.hdtracks.com it could start buying digital lossless music, but that site has an extremely limited library. (Got the Michael Jackson album from there). But when amazon and iTunes etch, start providing digital lossless music instead of that crap MP3 they selling, then I go be more inclined to spend my money.

I don't pirate ah single game anymore, I just buy it on steam sale. And if it's good enough (like Skyrim, etc) I buy it full price at launch. The music industry can get there easy, Amazon and Apple just have to provide lossless digital.

The movie industry on the other hand, need somebody to take up the mantle.

Until then, fresco will always be more appealing.

[QuickDraw]

MessiaaH, yuh preaching gospel there.

the question to ask is: why make better movies, why fix teh whole industry, why update yuh business model, why make money from sales, when you could just sue everyone for a bazillion dollars instead?



torrent downloads ≠ lost sales


http://entertainment.time.com/2013/03/21/illegal-music-downloads-not-hurting-industry-study-claims/

Specifically, the study found that legal purchases would be about 2 percent lower without illegal downloading available—meaning, yes, illegal downloads boost legal downloads. Their conclusion: people who download pirated music mostly do so for tunes they wouldn’t have ever spent money on. The positive effect of streaming was even larger.

Read more: http://entertainment.time.com/2013/03/21/illegal-music-downloads-not-hurting-industry-study-claims/#ixzz2i6EHQJZp

[Arcmanov]

The word is 'freeco'.   Fresco is something else entirely.

I never really relied on ISOHunt anyway, so I won't miss em.

That said... Hollywood have PLENTY lawyers.
I'm surprised that PirateBay still around after all the litigation.





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[TriniXaeno]

That said... Hollywood have PLENTY lawyers.
I'm surprised that PirateBay still around after all the litigation.

^This!!!

I also agree with Messiaah on the concept...steam has proven....without a doubt (and itunes/netflix for that matter) that digital distribution can work and make good money.

A lot of the trappings and commensurate costs that come with physical distribution are banished.

Leaving a sweet $$ gravy train for corporate America to lick up, while providing reasonable prices to the consumer.

Disrupting every industry it has touched.

I am certain it is only a matter of time before it hits the movie scene.

There is already talk of a Digital Cinema. You can have your own personal Imaxx in your living room with the latest movies delivered straight to your setup.

Modern Cinemas have digital delivery mechanisms.

See the savings already recognized

Digital distribution of movies has the potential to save money for film distributors. To print an 80-minute feature film can cost US$1,500 to $2,500,[28] so making thousands of prints for a wide-release movie can cost millions of dollars. In contrast, at the maximum 250 megabit-per-second data rate (as defined by DCI for digital cinema), a feature-length movie can be stored on an off-the-shelf 300 GB hard drive for $150 and a broad release of 4000 'digital prints' might cost $600,000. In addition hard drives can be returned to distributors for reuse. With several hundred movies distributed every year, the industry saves billions of dollars.

Gets even cheaper if you go through the internet via broadband.

Make it happen!