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Federal Court Issues Permanent Injunction For Isohunt

Posted by timothy on from the federal-prisons-are-actually-nicer-than-most dept.

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from NewTeeVee: "Judge Stephen Wilson of the US District Court of California, Southern District, issued a permanent injunction (PDF) against the popular torrent site Isohunt yesterday, forcing the site and its owner Garry Fung to immediately prevent access to virtually all Hollywood movies. The injunction theoretically leaves the door open for the site to deploy a strict filtering system, but its terms are so broad that Isohunt has little choice but to shut down or at the very least block all US visitors. ... The verdict states that they have to cease 'hosting, indexing, linking to, or otherwise providing access to any (torrent) or similar files' that can be used to download the studios' movies and TV shows. Studios have to supply Isohunt with a list of titles of works they own, and Isohunt has to start blocking those torrents within 24 hours."

8 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Last time I checked by damicatz · · Score: 5, Informative

    The last time I checked, Isohunt was based in Canada as was Garry Fung. And last time I checked, Canada was (not yet) part of the US. Just another arrogant American judge who thinks that the entire world should be subject to US rule and law.

    1. Re:Last time I checked by iCEBaLM · · Score: 4, Informative

      As a Canadian citizen who has visited the US a few times in the past, I'm actually scared to travel to your country, knowing what I know about what you do to some of your guests.

      I'll stay up here, thanks.

    2. Re:Last time I checked by blitzd · · Score: 5, Informative

      Living in a border city, we cross several times a year from Windsor to Detroit (shopping, sporting events, etc) and each and every time we enter the US my ass puckers up. I HATE entering the states even though I have absolutely nothing to hide... it's brutal.

      Vacationing is a pain in the ass too. We usually fly out from Detroit metro, so we always have a hard time in the airport coming back home. They just can't seem to grasp why Canadians from Windsor would fly out of, and into, Detroit.

    3. Re:Last time I checked by Pinhedd · · Score: 4, Informative

      Isohunt was initally based in the US and were still based in the US when the lawsuit was filed by the MPAA. They moved to Canada afterward. Last I checked, isohunt had blocked all access to US visitors a long time ago

    4. Re:Last time I checked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Good point: Mark Emery (the so-called "Prince of Pot") was extradited from Vancouver to the US yesterday to face 5 years in a US prison for selling pot seeds by mail order (which is punishable in Canada by a $200 fine).

    5. Re:Last time I checked by Tuoqui · · Score: 3, Informative

      I hope you dont give that access to your US employees. They could be compelled to access this information for the US Government and be prevented from telling you about it because of those national security letters.

      --
      09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
      +2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
  2. Re:This proves how clueless by westlake · · Score: 3, Informative
    Again, this proves just how utterly clueless judges (and politicans) are of how the Internet actually works.

    It proves how clueless the geek is about how the law works.

  3. Re:ISO Hunt disagrees with the summary by westlake · · Score: 3, Informative

    Despite rumors that we are ordered to filter by keywords for the US, there's only a proposed order, no actual order.

    The isoHunt announcement is dated April 5 Annonucements. The permanent injunction was filed May 20th. isoHunt Permanent Injunction

    The court had this to say about its right to act:

    The Court further clarifies that this injunction covers any acts
    of direct infringement, as defined in 17 U.S.C. 106, that take place
    in the United States. To the extent that an act of reproducing,
    copying, distributing, performing, or displaying takes place in the
    United States, it may violate 17 U.S.C. 106, subject to the generally
    applicable requirements and defenses of the Copyright Act.

    As
    explained in the Court's December 23, 2009 Order, "United States
    copyright law does not require that both parties be located in the
    United States. Rather, the acts of uploading and downloading are each
    independent grounds of copyright infringement liability." Summary
    Judgment Order at 19. Each download or upload of Plaintiffs'
    copyrighted material violates Plaintiffs' copyrights if even a single
    United States-based user is involved in the "swarm" process of
    distributing, transmitting, or receiving a portion of a computer file
    containing Plaintiffs' copyrighted content.