Federal Court Issues Permanent Injunction For Isohunt

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."

Comments

Last time I checked

[damicatz]

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.

Re:Last time I checked

[lisany]

Wait til you see what happens to Mr. Fung when he (next) attempts to visit the United States.

Re:Last time I checked

[haderytn]

Why would he want to do that?

Re:Last time I checked

[Mashiki]

Being that I live in Canada, and get more hassles going into the US then I do Japan, I wouldn't want to travel there either. Despite all the nice touristy types of things you can do. I'd rather travel half way across the world for a vacation now.

Re:Last time I checked

[__aaaaxm1522]

Last time I visited the US was about 10 years ago. We have everything we need up here, believe it or not.

Re:Last time I checked

[sopssa]

Well, you don't even need to travel to US. Just travel to one of the countries (95% of the world) that has extradition treaty with US and they send you there right away, without even having a change to fight against extradition in Canadian court. You better not travel anywhere then.

Re:Last time I checked

[Tanuki64]

I am German. Would have no legal problems to enter the USA, but I love them that much that the only reason I'd visit Satan's own country would be that I can leave it with very much more money I entered it. When it comes to a simple vacation there are better and safer alternatives. Like China, Cuba, or North Korea.

Re:Last time I checked

[iCEBaLM]

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.

Re:Last time I checked

[blitzd]

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.

Re:Last time I checked

[Pinhedd]

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

Re:Last time I checked

[Ethanol-fueled]

Being an American living in a Southern border city, I cross several DHS checkpoints to travel laterally across the country and each and every time my ass puckers up. They run dogs around my car and send me to secondary because I lose the staring contest or they're in a bad mood. I HATE being asked where I'm going and what I'm doing even though I'm the lone person in the car, Caucasian, never having travelled to Mexico.

Worse, the constitution-free zone extends 100 miles inland. That region is where I spend 95% of my time.

Re:Last time I checked

[Anonymous Coward]

+1. I used to travel all the time to the US - Vegas 4 or 5 times a year, CA, NY. Now I avoid the country entirely. Plus all our servers have been removed from the US because the Patriot Act permits the government access to our customers' records while making it illegal for anyone to even inform us this has happened - we can't trust our customer data in that sort of environment (we are an entirely legitimate company with 60,000+ employees).

Land of the free? Home of the brave? Not so much...

Re:Last time I checked

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:Last time I checked

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did a C&D order (civil) become a matter for extradition (criminal)?

Re:Last time I checked

[Anonymous Coward]

That's odd. Why the puckerage?
The Feds can stick a vehicle checkpoint in front of my house for all I care.

( So if you have nothing to hide, then you won't mind if I place hidden cameras in your bathroom ceiling fan and watch you shower and shit? After all, you're not doing anything illegal and you have nothing to hide, right? Everybody shits, right?

You are a goddamn retard. Not being watched, poked, and prodded like a goddamn animal in a zoo is a right that should be afforded to every American[and preferably foreign tourists who want to give us a hand and spend their money here, especially in this economy]. Do you seriously believe that we're under constant threat of terrorist attacks and that those checkpoints will do anything to stop the few who would want to hurt us?

As for your relationship with the LEO -- hanging out in chat rooms and pretending to be a 13 year old girl does not make you a federal agent, it makes you a useful idiot looking for a pat on the head.

Damn, trolled again. Also, you're going from friend to foe -- I have no problem with different opinions as long as they aren't just retarded. )

Re:Last time I checked

[stimpleton]

Hopefully most here know the significance of the phrase "papers please" and its origins and this post reminds me of that phrase. So I went to YouTube and entered "papers please". One might expect old war movie footage. Instead, video upon video of US cops and "papers please". But the politicians and patriots tell us we are free, so we are, right?

Re:Last time I checked

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on your last name. They got it into their heads that evilness depends on how foreign your last name sounds.

Re:Last time I checked

[Anonymous Coward]

In some ways, it's amazingly similar, in others, it's so drastically different. For one, Canada doesn't have a deep pervasive distrust of government in any form. I honestly don't see how people trust companies that are legitimately and honestly out to screw customers in the name of profit MORE than a government that has to actually answer for its actions on a continuing basis.

Re:Last time I checked

[PsychoSlashDot]

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.

Brutal? What are you subject to? I'm curious to see if your experiences are much different than mine when I fly domestic.

It's hyperbole. But still. Considering the circumstances, it's absurd. I too am a Windsorite who occasionally crosses into Detroit (these days to do indoor rock-climbing). At the minimal these days I'm subjected to an hour wait to manage to enter a city that has been part of "my" skyline for 37 years. 45 of those minutes are spent sitting in a tunnel under the river. Say goodbye to a gallon of gas. Once I finally emerge into the light once again I get to admire the parking lot that is the waiting area for processing. Then my vehicle and I get to pass through a bewildering array of scanners, cameras, and I-don't-know-what that pretty much looks like a war zone. Finally I get a nice 5 to 10 minute interview with a border guard with a gun wherein I justify to his or her satisfaction that I am who my papers say I am, and that I have a good enough reason to enter the U.S. The entire time I am painfully aware that if I appear too nervous, not nervous enough, or my story triggers any sort of profile I can and will be detained, potentially for hours. My car (which I quite adore) may be literally disassembled while I am not permitted to watch. I may be personally searched, permanently flagged as suspicious, and the future process may become significantly more difficult for me.

Why?

What the hell is the justification for this absurdity? Please understand... if I want to get into the U.S. to do anything malicious, all I need to do is rent a canoe or Jet-ski. I can bring in whatever quantity of whatever I want with me. Get this... there's a "party" island in the middle of the river. People from both countries can dock there and hang out on the beach, without passing customs. I can get off my boat and onto someone else', with or without weapons, drugs, nuclear armaments, dirty bombs, bio-weapons, or child pornography.

The border is a feel-good joke that makes nobody feel good except those American voters who don't have to use it. It will not keep Americans safe. It will not inconvenience theoretical terrorists. It will not prevent attacks.

I have lived in Windsor for 37 years. I've been crossing this border periodically for most of them. I've been driving the same car for two years. I've been going to the same climbing facility for nine months. WAVE ME THE FUCK THROUGH. I'd love to answer the 20 questions like "where do you work" with "same place as three weeks ago", but I don't want my asshole probed. I am afraid. That is just plain wrong. Know the saying "if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to be afraid of"? In this case it's totally inaccurate.

I am not he psychotic American-hating vengeful, spiteful, angry, bomb-toting, murderous boogieman you are afraid of. But on a scale of zero to a million, where I was at zero most of my life, I'm now at a strong one on the scale of ending the last sentence with "yet".

Re:Last time I checked

[shutdown -p now]

What's sad and yet ironic in all this is that, in the name of not wanting to share your precious country with evil outsiders, you're actively eroding the very freedoms that made it great in the first place.

Re:movies on... ISOhunt?

[Culture20]

Can someone clue me in to why isohunt was hosting movies/music in the first place?

Because they're they favorite food of isos, and isohunt was luring them in for the kill.

Re:This proves how clueless

[Capt_Morgan]

Actually we all know how it works... It's very simple. The law is whatever appointed, corrupt judges say it is... and generally is applied differently to those with wealth and power

Re:This proves how clueless

[WrongSizeGlass]

What country are YOU in? Do laws in OTHER countries apply to YOU when YOU are NOT in those other countries, at all?

Just a friendly tech-support related tip, I think there may be an intermittent issue with your shift or caps lock key. You might want to get that checked out.

Re:A better PDF link

[EnsilZah]

Someone should set up a torrent for that.

Re:This proves how clueless

[russotto]

Which the geek never admits to having.

Even when his income is substantially above the median for his home state, city or county.

High income does not equate to wealth and power. Your average IT professional is going to be upper middle class, which is to say prime sheep for fleecing, not wealthy and powerful.