IsoHunt To Court: Google Is the Bigger Problem

Krystalo writes "isoHunt is still fighting its legal battle with the MPAA. In the latest episode, the torrent website filed a reply brief to the US Court of Appeals in which it suggests that Google, and not IsoHunt, is the largest BitTorrent search engine on the Internet."

Comments

Purpose and intents

[devtools]

Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is. Us geeks have to learn that such things matter in court. It's a common problem with people who have Asperger's syndrome, but I think lots of those things apply to us geeks too. We need copyright so we can have successful companies like and products like Canonical and Microsoft. We tend to take things too literally and technically and cannot see past that. Things don't work like that - intend and purposes has a lot to do with it.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone here thinks they have Asperger's when it's probably well below 5%. Fortunately not everyone here is socially awkward and trying to make excuses for it.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is.

Your exclusivity claim about IsoHunt and TPB is a lie.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

IsoHunt and PriateBay do not distribute ANY content, other than .torrent files. That's the point. They should not be held accountable for what users seed. Don't sue MIT because someone picks your lock. Don't sue Microsoft because someone sent you a death threat using Outlook. Same principle.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Another new account and troll post by the poster known as devxo, balls of steel, Billy the Boy, and divxio.

Re:Purpose and intents

[WrongSizeGlass]

Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is.

The Mob isn't exclusively used for selling counterfeit goods, so I guess they're not guilty of it?

Claiming Google isn't doing anything illegal but isoHunt is because it's all they do is crap. It's just that isoHunt doesn't have the deep pockets of a Google, Bing or Yahoo. If the MPAA thought they could win they'd be suing the big search engines too.

Re:Purpose and intents

[cpu6502]

(1) They shouldn't have modded you down to (0). Everyone, even idiots, are entitled to express an opinion.

>>>Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is.

(2) Clearly you've never used isohunt. Isohunt doesn't distribute material. Nor *.tor files. It doesn't even provide a tracker! It's simply google with the "filetype torrent" tag.

Re:Purpose and intents

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is.

Wrong.

It's a common problem with people who have Asperger's syndrome...

I'm starting to see why people repeat themselves a lot around you.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Tiger4]

Back in high school, the cops did a drug sting on campus. They busted the drug dealers AND the people that told them how to find the drug dealers. being part of the problem means you are part of the problem.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

If MIT was Lock Pick University, and Outlook was Microsoft (TM) Death Threat Creator, would the principle still be the same?

Re:Purpose and intents

[cpu6502]

>>>We need copyright so we can have successful companies like and products like Canonical and Microsoft

"There is not, in nature, a right to protect your ideas from copying..... just as you may light your taper by my fire, without diminishing my heat, so may you copy my ideas without diminishing my use of my invention." - Thomas Jefferson, 1780s

Re:Purpose and intents

[Timmmm]

Erm, that was exactly his point - that it doesn't *matter* about the precise technical details. The legal system cares more about intent.

Google 'colour of bits'.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Mongoose Disciple]

Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is.

Wrong.

Now convince any court of that. I don't think IsoHunt can.

What matters legally isn't what's technically true; what matters is what you can prove (or, more accurately, sell/persuade.)

Re:Purpose and intents

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

What matters legally isn't what's technically true; what matters is what you can prove (or, more accurately, sell/persuade.)

Fair point. Ah, that's what the other poster was saying... I responded too quickly, I guess I have Aspbergers. :)

My bad.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

If this one plays out anything like his RMS post, it'll hover at +2 for 12 hours before it miraculously jumps up to +5 while no one's watching.

Re:Purpose and intents

[gstoddart]

Back in high school, the cops did a drug sting on campus. They busted the drug dealers AND the people that told them how to find the drug dealers. being part of the problem means you are part of the problem.

Which, is pretty reaching considering in some places it's pretty hard not to know who is dealing, and knowing to stay away from them can be a valuable skill.

That would be like arresting people who can plainly point out which are the crack houses -- it's kind of obvious, and simply knowing where they are doesn't mean you were in any involved in it.

And, they wonder why people aren't always keen to cooperate with police.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't sue Microsoft because someone sent you a death threat using Outlook.

Yeah, but what if they wrote it in Word, too?

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a common problem with people who have Asperger's syndrome, but I think lots of those things apply to us geeks too.

You say that as if the two groups are mutually exclusive.

I mean, have you ever tried talking to some of the more... how to put this delicately... opinionated and just plain loud geeks out there? In real life, too? The usual story of "I was rejected from society my entire life and never had a chance to grow up with a normal social life" only goes so far as an explanation for some of them.

Re:Purpose and intents

[softWare3ngineer]

torrents aren't solely made for distributing copyrighted contents ether. i use them regularly to download software that is not illegal. they are a faster and robust mechanism to download anything. although this arguments is not valid for sites whose sole purpose is to provide illegal content, but there are a good deal of sites that dont fit that category. i could use pirate bay to post my own legal video is if i wanted to. it should be notated that the supreme court hasn't found this an adequate argument in the past though.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Desler]

Yes, but IsoHunt willy facilitates copyright infringement and to act like they don't know that people are posting torrents to download copyrighted works is extremely naive and would never stand up in court.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice work, but Jefferson actually supported IP laws, albeit in a Constitutionally limited manner.

"I like the declaration of rights as far as it goes, but I should have been for going further. For instance, the following alterations and additions would have pleased me... Article 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding ___ years, but for no longer term, and for no other purpose."
Thomas Jefferson, August 28, 1789

Re:Purpose and intents

[cpu6502]

>>>IsoHunt willy facilitates copyright infringement a

WRONG. Isohunt doesn't distribute torrents. /b> Why can't people pull their braisn out of their anuses, and WAKE UP? Isohunt.com is not a tracker. It used to be several years ago, but not anymore. Now they are identical to google - just providing links.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Kjella]

Which, is pretty reaching considering in some places it's pretty hard not to know who is dealing, and knowing to stay away from them can be a valuable skill. (...) And, they wonder why people aren't always keen to cooperate with police.

Well being a sting people didn't know they were talking to cops. The second part is the difference between knowing and sending them business, I guess it depends on how they asked. It's one to thing to comment on it in conversation, but if you're asked "Dude, do you know how to get some pot around here?" and you say "Look for that red-haired guy who hangs out down by the C building, he always has good stuff." you've done more than comment on what looks like a crack house.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

facilitates copyright infringement

You say that like it's a crime.

Re:Purpose and intents

[poetmatt]

Isohunt isn't made for distributing copyrighted content illegally, nor is any other site, including google.

It's not their job to determine what is illegal and what isn't, nor to police what people are distributing. I think you forget that little section 230 thing.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

So guns DO kill people after all? And should be banned completely?

Re:Purpose and intents

[KingMotley]

>>>IsoHunt willy facilitates copyright infringement a

WRONG

Oh. So you are saying they don't facilitate copyright infringement?

just providing links

Oh. So they are facilitating copyright infringement. What was your point?

Re:Purpose and intents

[Mongoose Disciple]

Consider that if you're having to try to split those hairs and argue that point here, IsoHunt's chances of successfully arguing it to an almost certainly non-technical judge are not good.

Re:Purpose and intents

[future assassin]

I though isoHut was only a search engine and didn't even host the torrent files but indexed other torrent sites.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mob isn't exclusively used for selling counterfeit goods, so I guess they're not guilty of it?

Claiming Google isn't doing anything illegal but isoHunt is because it's all they do is crap. It's just that isoHunt doesn't have the deep pockets of a Google, Bing or Yahoo. If the MPAA thought they could win they'd be suing the big search engines too.

A gun's main purpose is defense during times of war/legal self defense and hunting. Because someone can use that tool to murder someone, illegally, does that mean that gun manufacturers are doing something illegal? Can they easily put a "can't be used for murder" feature on all the guns they manufacture? No. Should a gun that's only purpose is to murder people (fully automatic weapons, anyone?) be illegal? Yes.
Google is a tool for searching the Web, people do illegal things on the Web. Can Google easily block torrents from search? Sure, but there are far too many legal uses for torrents. Can Google easily weed out the "illegal" torrents? Possibly, but would it be 100% effective? No, some will still slip through and some legal torrents could be blocked.
You're example of the Mob selling counterfeit goods is also poor because the Mob really has no other legal purposes. That's like saying, if IsoHunt also started selling drugs on their site and a prostitution service. Is IsoHunt used exclusively for prostitution? No, so they're not guilty of it.

Re:Purpose and intents

[ZorinLynx]

My school had a "C" building, so this response made me jump. :)

Amusingly the buildings were out of order; C was between "A" and "B". :)

Re:Purpose and intents

[cpu6502]

CONTEXT KingMotley. "people are posting torrents to isohunt" is what the original poster claimed. Except that's wrong. You CAN'T post torrents to isohunt.

Jeez.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in high school, the cops did a drug sting on campus. They busted the drug dealers AND the people that told them how to find the drug dealers. being part of the problem means you are part of the problem.

Yes, because your experience with fascist school administrators and cops means that the world should work that way all the time, right? Here's a hint: basing ANY sort of policy decision on the shit done in the name of "The War On (some) Drugs" is idiotic, unless you're looking at the policy and doing the opposite.

Re:Purpose and intents

[cpu6502]

>>>section 230 thing.

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." It does not apply to federal criminal law, intellectual property law, and electronic communications privacy law.

http://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/230

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Automatic-transmission cars should also be illegal, because their only purpose is to murder people.

Re:Purpose and intents

[migla]

You pull up Canonical, as to say that we need copyright law to enforce the GPL?

That is correct. However, it is so because the law is the tool available for enforcing the philosophy of *sharing*. I'm sure RMS would be ok with a law that did away with copyrights and said that all code and culture that was distributed should be freely shareable.

Re:Purpose and intents

[erroneus]

1. Asperger's and being a geek are not mutually exclusive... not even remotely. In fact, it is closer to true to say "Asperger's is to Geek as Square is to Rectangle"

2. We do not need Copyright to have successful companies like Microsoft and Canonical. In fact, copyright on software is simply a misapplication of copyright law. Software has all sorts of properties that is not typically identified with things which are copyrightable. Books are copyrightable. I can own a book and do all the things I want with things I own except reproduce it for the purpose of sale. With software, we don't own it, we get a license to use it. Also, copyrighted materials don't usually also share the qualities of being patentable or otherwise appear to be "an invention" rather than an artistic creation. Software is a unique convergence every type of intellectual property that I can think of. It has the ability to hold trademark, copyright, and patent protection.

(You might as well stop reading here... this could go on for a long time... but I will get to a "point 3" or maybe a "point 2.1" later on)

Is software a "service"? No. It's a list of instructions for a processor to execute. The instructions were already written and I can maintain a copy of those instructions which is independent of a vendor. Is software a creative work? My programming background says "yes, sort of" because it takes a certain degree of creativity to build interesting and useful software, but it is not an expressive art so it's more like engineering and architecture. (architectural and engineering drawings are copyrightable, however) In any case, SOURCE CODE is a work of "authorship." But wait, we don't usually run source code -- we run binaries... compiled (constructed) machine-readable instructions which vary based on the architecture it was compiled for. So if buildings and mechanical devices (which are the compiled/constructed outcome of engineering and architectural drawings) are not eligible for copyright protection, then software shouldn't be eligible either. After all, all OTHER copyrightable works are able to be experienced by people through their senses. This is not the case with software -- people only get output generated by the list of executable instructions most often based on another source of data or input.

I suppose I could go on and on about software and patents as well, repeating the same points that have been repeated here for working on ten years it seems. But if software is worthy of patent protection, then so is entering "100" on a microwave oven. After all, that too is a series of instructions for operating a machine. It doesn't make "a whole new machine" does it? And neither does software -- software is an implementation of tiny elements of functionality of an existing invention. If I used a can opener as a screwdriver or a fingernail cleaner, did I just "invent" something? Sure it might be a novel use for something, but it is also "obvious" and so is the use of a series of instructions which are fully and completely documented by the inventors of processor units. Lego is patentable, but a "Lego thing" is not... or, well, should not be in my opinion. (This fits in nicely with nearly everyone's beef with the notion of patenting old things by adding "over the internet" to them... it's kind of the same thing!)

2.1. So why are Microsoft and Canonical successful? Producing copyright protected software is not the reason. If that's all they did, starting today, they would be out of business within five years. No, they provide services and support. And you don't need copyright protection to run a business which consists largely of services and support. And without the services and support, they would not exist. If software ceased to be recognized as having copyright protection, they would STILL be in business within five years.

Swords are made for killing people, so they should be illegal right? Well, no... I like the way they look and I think they look great hanging on a wall.

Re:Purpose and intents

[cpu6502]

>>>Jefferson actually supported IP laws

Considering this long and lengthy argument from 1786, I don't know how can you reach that braiddead conclusion. Note the final bolded sentence.

"Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.

"Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

Re:Purpose and intents

[JSombra]

"Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is. Us geeks have to learn that such things matter in court."

So a otherwise gainfully employed part time drug dealer is is not doing anything illegal?

Intent, purpose, gain or even knowledge of the law are of little interest to the court's except at sentencing, which only occurs after the actual guilty/innocent verdict

Re:Purpose and intents

[JSombra]

Cops can arrest you for pretty much anything what, what count's is what happen's in court and would be very interested to see if a single person who told them were to find drug's was convicted if they did not stupidly plead out. Somehow i doubt it

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you've never used isohunt. Isohunt doesn't distribute material. Nor *.tor files. It doesn't even provide a tracker! It's simply google with the "filetype torrent" tag.

So, in other words, it's Google filtered to only include links to illegal downloads of copyrighted material (although the occasional Linux distro or other non-illegally distributed material does occasionally find its way into the results— although, let's be realistic, while torrent is a valid way to distribute something like Linux, isoHunt is hardly where a person looking for a Linux distro would go to find it). This is precisely the problem. Unlike Google, IsoHunt exists for the primary purpose of helping people find illegally distributed content. That is their intent and purpose. The fact that they don't expressly host that content is just weaseling out of their responsibility.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

torrents aren't solely made for distributing copyrighted contents ether. i use them regularly to download software that is not illegal. they are a faster and robust mechanism to download anything. although this arguments is not valid for sites whose sole purpose is to provide illegal content, but there are a good deal of sites that dont fit that category. i could use pirate bay to post my own legal video is if i wanted to. it should be notated that the supreme court hasn't found this an adequate argument in the past though.

Which is probably why nobody is trying to ban torrent technology, but instead stopping those who OBVIOUSLY don't care that the vast majority of the content is infringing material. You want to set up a legal torrent site? Go ahead. But don't thumb your nose at the courts with some pretentious claims that you aren't encouraging people to come to your site because they want to get the latest hollywood movies for free.

Judges, despite beliefs to the contrary, are not stupid, are not unthinking machines, and can see for themselves when you're pulling a fast one. They are human. of course, that also means they can be stupid, or biased, but let's not get into all of that.

Re:Purpose and intents

[robthebloke]

I remember something similar happening at a party at uni. There were a couple of guys in their mid 30's drinking soft drinks at a student party filled with 20 year olds. They kept going around asking if anyone could sort them out any drugs, or if they knew the name of anyone who could - but with a kind of zeal that your average person simply wouldn't have. They stuck out like a sore thumb, so everyone had twigged they were police well before the inevitable raid happened (by which time, anyone with anything, had already gone home). In the end, all they found was the rest of the party racking up lines of sugar on the kitchen table ;)

Re:Purpose and intents

[Samantha Wright]

But that stretches the analogy to the point where it doesn't apply. As much as I'm pretty sure I'm on your side, you're strawmanning, dude. The GP was talking about drug dealer referrers, not merely people who knew who drug dealers were. And obviously IsoHunt doesn't know about torrents in order to keep away from them!

Re:Purpose and intents

[BitZtream]

2) Clearly you've never used isohunt. Isohunt doesn't distribute material. Nor *.tor files. It doesn't even provide a tracker! It's simply google with the "filetype torrent" tag.

How convient that every excludes the fact that the results returned are almost exclusively for content which isn't legal to distribute.

You're trying to split hairs and it doesn't work that way. The point of isohunt is to find pirate torrents, every one knows that. Just because theres a Linux torrent linked once in a while doesn't change the fact that the other 99.99% of their links are to pirated material.

The guy who tells you how to find an assassin is still considered a criminal, even if he doesn't do the killing or even if he just connects you to some other person thats known to have contacts with assassins.

What they do from a technical standpoint is irrelevant when its clear that the intent is to facilitate illegal activities.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Seumas]

I couldn't agree more. The increasing fad among geeks to self diagnose themselves as mildly autistic ever since some report came out a few years ago has really tended to turn my stomach. What the fuck is wrong with you that you go around wanting to have something be wrong with you? Or is it just a desperate clinging on to an explanation for a few awkward personality traits that can be blamed on something beyond your control?

Ten and fifteen years ago, everyone went around saying they had ADD and ADHD. Now they go around saying they have Aspergers. You don't have aspergers, you fucking drama queens.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Mister Whirly]

The point is Google provides links to torrents as well. And on a magnitude greater than isohunt. So why isn't Google in trouble? That is, I believe, the point. 2 companies both doing the same thing, yet only one has trouble because of it.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Tiger4]

And you would be wrong. Pleas and convictions all around. Knowingly Aiding a crime is a crime in its own right.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Jurily]

Ten and fifteen years ago, everyone went around saying they had ADD and ADHD. Now they go around saying they have Aspergers. You don't have aspergers, you fucking drama queens.

I nominate "being a man" as the next hip disorder to have.

Re:Purpose and intents

[biryokumaru]

What, I slaughtered and butchered that donkey and went to all that work and now you're saying I'm not allowed to have ass burgers? Jeez, you jerk!

Re:Purpose and intents

[X0563511]

It is.

That doesn't mean it's wrong, but it is a crime. What makes it a crime? Laws written that say it is.

Re:Purpose and intents

[camperdave]

In fact, it is closer to true to say "Asperger's is to Geek as Square is to Rectangle"

... or to put it bluntly Aspergers are square.

Re:Purpose and intents

[dadelbunts]

Your comment made no sense whatsoever. You want to ban fully automatic weapons because they are more efficent? Why not also ban semi automatic weapons as well then. Should we ban double action revolvers also? Might as well just go back to muzzle loaders.Assault rifles make up something like 1% of gun related crimes. Also how does banning ANY weapon prevent its use in crimes. Do you think a criminal will be like "i wont use this gun its illegal"

Re:Purpose and intents

[cheekyjohnson]

And? I believe that was idiotic as well.

being part of the problem

Assuming there's a problem at all, that is.

Re:Purpose and intents

[mistiry]

Since all IsoHunt does is INDEX other website's torrents, how can one reasonably assume that the INTENT of IsoHunt is to find copyright-infringing material? I can build a website with the INTENTION of indexing images from a variety of sites, how would it then be my fault if Website X (that my website indexes) begins a child pornography section, and the images are picked up by my indexing software? Same concept here - my INTENTION is to provide a legal image repository of images gathered from the web, yet through no fault of my own illegal images get indexed. This is why we have DMCA takedowns and places like ChillingEffects.org (the organization responsible for assisting with removing exactly this type of thing from Google's results). So long as IsoHunt would abide by DMCA, etc. requests, they should not be legally accountable for content hosted at other places. Period.

Re:Purpose and intents

[BatGnat]

Actually isohunt is solely made to search other websites for torrent files. Torrent files are not illegal, and they are not copyrighted. The content that a torrent file points your bit torrent client to, may be illegal, or it may be legal.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Jurily]

Back in high school, the cops did a drug sting on campus.

Thankfully, copyright infringement is not a criminal category yet.

They busted the drug dealers AND the people that told them how to find the drug dealers.

By that reasoning, we could lock up most politicians. They've been telling me there's child porn on the internet for years.

being part of the problem means you are part of the problem.

Are you sure?

Re:Purpose and intents

[SQLGuru]

That argument is essentially "don't punish me because THEY DID IT TOO". All that does is get both of you in trouble.

If they decide to go after Google, that's a separate court case....and of course we all know that the winner in court is usually the one that can afford the most expensive lawyers and Google has a *LOT* of cash.

Re:Purpose and intents

[lgw]

What % of IsoHunt searches are used for finding illegal torrents? What % of Google searches are used for finding illegal torrents? That's what will matter to the court.

Re:Purpose and intents

[ZipK]

The increasing fad among geeks to self diagnose themselves as mildly autistic ever since some report came out a few years ago has really tended to turn my stomach. What the fuck is wrong with you that you go around wanting to have something be wrong with you?

Most likely it's mild autism.

Re:Purpose and intents

[CastrTroy]

I think the point of these comments about "I have asperger's" or "I Have ADHD" is that there seems to be an exploded in recent years. Now every kid who doesn't pay attention has ADHD, and every kid who is antisocial has asperger's. I seriously think that had I been born in 2000 instead of 1980, that I would have been branded as having some kind of level of ADHD or Asperge'rs. I've seen kids who were diagnosed with ADHD or aspergers, and It amazes me how similar some of our behaviours are.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Risen888]

while torrent is a valid way to distribute something like Linux, isoHunt is hardly where a person looking for a Linux distro would go to find it

Bullshit, I do it all the time. Way faster than clicking through websites to find a download link.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Risen888]

I don't think it's Isohunt's fault that the majority of things that third parties choose to share via torrent are illegal.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

a gun that's only purpose is to murder people

No such thing.

Re:Purpose and intents

[syockit]

The guy who tells you how to find an assassin is still considered a criminal, even if he doesn't do the killing...

Hmm, I wonder what a Linux-equivalent of an assassin is like.

Re:Purpose and intents

[sosume]

Thankfully, copyright infringement is not a criminal category yet.

Haven't you read the front page?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/16/1441221/White-House-Wants-New-Copyright-Law-Crackdown

Re:Purpose and intents

[bberens]

It doesn't seem to matter what % of the time I speed vs. what % of the time other people speed when I argue against my speeding tickets.

Re:Purpose and intents

[bberens]

I know there's laws for facilitating criminal law crimes, I wasn't aware there was a similar law for civil matters.

Re:Purpose and intents

[nacturation]

It's like starting up a site called HunterHunt. Not the site owner's fault that 99% of hunters on that site hunt humans you don't like in exchange for a few thousand in cash.

Re:Purpose and intents

[jaiyen]

That's probably true. But we've seen several court verdicts (Piratebay, Limewire etc) that show the courts consider it's the intent that's important, which would give Google a much better chance in court than Isohunt and the like have.

Isohunt, TPB, Limewire run their business on providing access to copyrighted content, take that away and 99% of their users aren't interested anymore. Google providing access to torrent links is more like an accidental side-effect, and 99% of their users wouldn't even notice if all torrent links were removed from Google tomorrow. Perhaps Slashbots think that shouldn't make a difference, but the courts seem to think it does.

Re:Purpose and intents

[lgw]

Intent isn't very relevent for speeding, because you're required to monitor the speed of your vehicle. Intent matters in many other areas of the law (though sadly a great many recent laws specifically exclude intent, which is pretty messed up).

Re:Purpose and intents

[Amouth]

random but why is Toyota on your Corp Blacklist?

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, while he might have supported a limited form of copyright, he certainly rejects "intellectual property".

Re:Purpose and intents

[green1]

let's look at it a different way... if someone who has never dealt with illegal material before wants to look, which is more likely the first place they go?
I'd say google most likely.

"I do illegal stuff, and more than he does, but as a percentage I don't do it as much as he does!" isn't a very good defence.

Let's face it, there's only one reason the media industry is going after the small players and not google, and that's because google would likely put up a much better fight.

Re:Purpose and intents

[green1]

out of curiosity, do you think google would have a better chance of arguing exactly the same point to the same judge? and if so, why?

Re:Purpose and intents

[Xtifr]

Fortunately for the point he was trying to make, exclusivity isn't the issue--he just got that little detail wrong. Actively promoting illegal activity is the issue (or an issue). Grokster lost when they tried the Sony Betamax defense ("substantial non-infringing uses") because they were actively promoting the illegal uses of their system. Google has never crossed that line. I don't know if IsoHunt (or Pirate Bay) has crossed that line, but the question is likely to be key.

Re:Purpose and intents

[lgw]

The intent of Google is to be a general-purpose search engine, as evidenced by the % of its searches that are questionable.

The intent of IsoHunt is to be a special-purpose search engine for people who seek to violate copyright, as evidenced by the % of its searches that are questionable.

I'm not sure why /. has such a hard time getting that "intent matters" every time a new place where people go for copyright violations hits the news. OTOH, I'm sure you're right and the MAFIAA would sue Google too if they thought they could.

Re:Purpose and intents

[LordLucless]

Modding someone down does not stop them expressing an opinion. It does not even stop people who want to from viewing that opinion. Modding down is not silencing people, censoring them, or violating their freedom of speech.

Re:Purpose and intents

[re_organeyes]

Carry this a bit further, let's blame the GPS folks for giving directions if the assassin uses one.

What about the clothes manuf. the made the sneaky clothes he wears?

Re:Purpose and intents

[Cajun Hell]

if you're asked "Dude, do you know how to get some pot around here?" and you say "Look for that red-haired guy who hangs out down by the C building, he always has good stuff." you've done more than comment on what looks like a crack house.

Which just goes to show drug-dealers still don't have their shit together. He should have said something like, "Look for that red-haired guy who hangs out down by the C building. He always has good stuff. Tell him referral code #24C67."

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Yours, too? There's this high school in a little 2x2 mile city in southeastern Michigan...

Re:Purpose and intents

[green1]

Intent matters only in sentencing. We aren't there yet. So far they are arguing as to whether or not being a search engine for a specific type of file that is in itself only a link to another file that may, or may not, contain illegal content.

The question is, is it illegal? if so, then google is guilty of the same offence as isohunt. Sentencing can decide what penalties should be associated with that. But the point is that if someone commits an illegal act, we shouldn't overlook it just because they can afford better lawyers, or conversely, we shouldn't select who to prosecute based soley on who can't afford to defend themselves properly.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Xtifr]

Google has never actively promoted the illegal uses of their system. That clearly puts them in the safe area between the exception to contributory infringement laws carved out by the Sony Betamax case ("substantial non-infringing uses") and the limits to that exception defined in the Grokster case ("no active promotion of the illegal uses"). Can IsoHunt say the same? (I honestly don't know.)

Re:Purpose and intents

[Xtifr]

No, the Sony Betamax decision established that mere percentages of illegal use are not relevant, but the Grokster decision established that how you promote your technology is. With those precedents, the case is likely to come down to the question of whether IsoHunt ever actively promoted the illegal uses of their system—something Google has never been accused of.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Lordfly]

Well, that's stupid. Now, when the cops ask people for help, they won't get any. GG cops.

Re:Purpose and intents

[mark-t]

And what if one was diagnosed with it by a doctor? What does that make one? How does one tell the difference between people who were formally diagnosed with it and those who have self-diagnosed only?

Re:Purpose and intents

[Moryath]

Well, increased awareness can be a vicious cycle with increased diagnosis.

ADHD overdiagnosis is a topic of some contention, of course, with many people believing that ADHD is overdiagnosed because some teachers (who are NOT medical professionals and should not be making medical recommendations) keep sending any student who isn't properly docile off until the parents give in and drug them.

Then again, having known an actual ADHD kid growing up, the difference between his behavior on and off meds was night-and-day. With meds, he could actually hold a conversation and do his homework. Off meds, he wound up after a few minutes running around pounding on stuff and traumatized the living hell out of his sister. So it's not that every kid with ADHD is misdiagnosed, either.

As for Asperger's... again, see "increased awareness." Is it possible that someone who are "merely antisocial" and "mild asperger's" may behave very similarly? Quite possibly. Could that lead to a misdiagnosis, or mis-self-diagnosis? Absolutely. Does it mean that maybe, they should see about at least an initial consult regarding the possibility? Not necessarily a bad idea.

Re:Purpose and intents

[shentino]

Cops can arrest you, but the arrest might not stick if they don't have probable cause.

Without probable cause the cop risks being sued for false arrest.

Re:Purpose and intents

[shentino]

Has ISOHunt ever received a DMCA takedown notice?

Re:Purpose and intents

[bberens]

I didn't say anything about intent. I was talking about the portion of my activity which is in violation of the law vs. someone else's activity, which was in direct response to the GGP post.

Re:Purpose and intents

[oliverthered]

umm..... Let's put your straw man another way...

I don't even think you have a clue what the hell they are... It's a sadly not decreasing fad amongst retarded people that they think anything different from them is somehow wrong and they are perfect arseholes. You are an arsehole, you are right.

They also appear to thing that those 'different' people aren't really different (lack of empathy and social understanding I'd expect, maybe ICD-10 Anti-social personality disorder), because they think themselves more acceptable if everyone else is an arsehole too.... just a retarded one who doesn't do the right thing.

One notable trait is the self superiority, or authoritarian and manipulative nature of such wannabe individuals. They may for instance think that people can't possibly know anything for themselves (since they rely on authoritarian learning and teaching methods and rational) and may use phrases such as 'The increasing fad among geeks to self diagnose themselves'

fad ... put down the other person...
geek ... well can be seen as a put down.
self diagnose themselves... well I don't know how you self diagnose someone else... but making them seem selfish and not obeying the authoritarian society they would like to construct with their sociopath ways.

opp's I diagnosed your self.

Re:Purpose and intents

[91degrees]

But what difference does it make what Jefferson said?

What do you think?

As far as |I see it, copyright exists for a practical purpose. The Us constitution says it is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". The original copyright law - the Statue of Queen Anne described itself as "An Act for the encouragement of learning".

It's not about moral rights, and never has been, although it is true that the media cartels do present it this way. It's a practical measure to encourage the publication of creative works.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether or not places like isohunt and piratebay distribute the content does not alter the fact that not only do they link to illegal content, but their entire business model depends on them continuing to do so. Without the illegal content, there is no reason to use the service.

That there does not seem to be any law that actually covers such a case does not change the argument that there might need to be.

Google's business model, on the other hand, does not in any way depend on the presence of illegal content being among the content it links to.

Re:Purpose and intents

[91degrees]

A given torrent file has no purpose except for the distribution of a specific set of large files. If the file cannot be legally distributed, the torrent file has no legal use.

If outlook could only be used for sending death threats, then I suspect Microsoft would be in trouble.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck is wrong with you that you go around wanting to have something be wrong with you?

Not being neurotypical doesn't mean something's "wrong" with you.

Re:Purpose and intents

[oliverthered]

asperger's is asocial not anti--social. egocentric but not egoistic.
anti social personality disorder is under ICD-10 and mutually exclusive, it's a theory of mind thing.

brain imaging on people with AS seems to show more empathy not less.

what's your theory?

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Just suppose that 100% of all links to illegally distributed content could be removed from Pirate Bay and IsoHunt, and kept off. Just imagine it for a moment. Now, is it at all reasonable to think that IsoHunt and Pirate Bay could, under such a hypothetical condition, still serve a distinctly useful purpose for even 1% of the people who currently use it?

Pirate Bay and IsoHunt's business models depend directly on people breaking the law, and to that extent they advocate and actively endorse such activity by others. If they did not, they would simply cease to exist, fading rapidly into obscurity.

A counterpoint to this that defense lawyers seem to depend on people breaking the law as well is failing to consider that rather, defense lawyers depend on people being *accused* of breaking the law, not people actually breaking it, specifically.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirate Bay and IsoHunt's business models depend directly on people breaking the law, and to that extent they advocate and actively endorse such activity by others. If they did not, they would simply cease to exist, fading rapidly into obscurity.

By that logic, anyone company that makes a car capable of going faster than the speed limit is guilty.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anthony Mouse]

Pirate Bay and IsoHunt's business models

Your failure is to assume that these websites have "business models" -- they're run by people (not for-profit corporations) who barely collect enough ad revenue to pay for the hosting costs.

Then you assume that the piracy comes first. I mean sure, The Pirate Bay, it's all about piracy, right? But the name is trying to poke fun at the problem, which existed before the site did.

And the problem is that anyone who refuses to censor their website on the say-so of anyone who claims without proof or adjudication to be a copyright holder, becomes a place where copyright infringement is common. So of course the response from Hollywood, who cares about copyright but not censorship, is that anyone who dares to wait for a court order before removing content is doing something wrong. As if "prior restraint" should be the default response from a website, rather than something of highly questionable constitutionality for the government to require.

So keep siding with them. We'll create a world where a take down is mandatory and fully-automated so that copyright can be enforced without the court system. Obviously no one will ever abuse that facility for censorship.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anthony Mouse]

What % of IsoHunt searches are used for finding illegal torrents? What % of Google searches are used for finding illegal torrents? That's what will matter to the court.

Why would that matter?

Or, put it this way: What percentage of Google torrent searches are used for finding infringing materials vs. non-infringing? Do you think it's much different than the same percentage on isoHunt?

Re:Purpose and intents

[lgw]

Intent doesn't just matter for sentening - I'm not sure why you would think that. Most criminal laws require mens rea to determine that a crime actually occured, as well as what degree of crime.

It's clear that IsoHunt in practice enabled people looking for illegal content to find that content - Google too. But if the intent when creating IsoHunt was to specificaly enable copyright violation, and the intent of Google wasn't, that's the important difference. Facts such as the predominant use of each system go towards intent.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anthony Mouse]

Your logic makes no sense. You're saying that whether someone has done something wrong depends on what other people do. Is that even constitutional?

Here, try a hypothetical: All of Hollywood gets together in an illegal cartel to back a new Rupert Murdoch plan to make search engines pay to index their websites. So a large majority of "legitimate" websites set up their robots.txt to disallow the site from being indexed unless a search engine has paid. Then Microsoft signs an exclusive deal with the entire cartel for Bing. The amount of legitimate websites returned as Google search results thereby plummets, but the infringing websites are all still there because they aren't in on the cartel, which means they're now most of the search results. Is Google now on the same footing as isoHunt, from your perspective?

Re:Purpose and intents

[iserlohn]

Speeding is what is called a strict liability offence. It does not require the intent, or more specifically the mens rea. The court only needs to establish the act, or specifically the actus reus.

Re:Purpose and intents

[justin12345]

ADD and ADHD drugs are sought after stimulants. That's why it's over diagnosed. At my little brother's college the doctors at the school clinic give out Adderall like candy. About half his friends are on the stuff. The kids love it because its speed, and the school loves it because test scores shoot way up.

I wasn't aware there was a fad of self diagnosing Asperger's. I know two people who do have Asperger's and I wouldn't describe them as geeky, just painfully socially awkward... except they are not, at least not anymore. They went through years of therapy and more or less overcame their disability.

Re:Purpose and intents

[deek]

Put it this way, if the majority of the links at isohunt were linking to legally shareable media, then they wouldn't be facing this legal battle. Ergo, Google is fine.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

In practice Craigslist, has allowed killers to find their victims. In practice, Bell Phones has allowed people to make terrorist threats using their phones. In practice, the US Postal system has delivered bombs and deadly poisons. Intenet doesn't matter for shit. Any system can be used for illegal purposes.

Re:Purpose and intents

[couchslug]

Of course I do!
How else can I get my Hug Box paid for by Medicare?

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

You don't have aspergers, you fucking drama queens.

Maybe not, but you probably do.

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

Ten and fifteen years ago, everyone went around saying they had ADD and ADHD. Now they go around saying they have Aspergers. You don't have aspergers, you fucking drama queens.

I nominate "being a man" as the next hip disorder to have.

Yeah, pretty soon 90% of slashdotters will claim to be male and Seumas will be just as incredulous.

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

I've seen kids who were diagnosed with ADHD or aspergers, and It amazes me how similar some of our behaviours are.

There's a good chance you actually have (an undiagnosed case of) one or the other.

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

Pirate Bay and IsoHunt's business models depend directly on people breaking the law, and to that extent they advocate and actively endorse such activity by others. If they did not, they would simply cease to exist, fading rapidly into obscurity.

By that logic, anyone company that makes a car capable of going faster than the speed limit is guilty.

No. Anyone making a car that people would only want to buy in order to drive it faster than the speed limit is guilty. You need to work on your analogies.

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

If the cops arrested you for apostrophe abuse, you would be convicted.

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

Back in high school, the cops did a drug sting on campus.

Thankfully, copyright infringement is not a criminal category yet.

Since when? Willful copyright infringement on a commercial scale has been a crime for a decade and a half, at least.

They busted the drug dealers AND the people that told them how to find the drug dealers.

By that reasoning, we could lock up most politicians. They've been telling me there's child porn on the internet for years.

Only if the politicians told you specifically where to go on the internet. I'm assuming they didn't bust people merely for saying, "There are drug dealers somewhere in Jefferson High School."

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

Intent matters only in sentencing.

What? Wait...what? *boggles at the absurdity*

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

What % of IsoHunt searches are used for finding illegal torrents? What % of Google searches are used for finding illegal torrents? That's what will matter to the court.

Well, that and the fact that IsoHunt marketed itself as a way to find pirated content, whereas Google markets itself as a general-use tool.

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

I know there's laws for facilitating criminal law crimes, I wasn't aware there was a similar law for civil matters.

Commercial copyright infringement is a crime under the US criminal code. It is at the combined discretion of the copyright holders and the US DOJ whether to prosecute or to sue (or neither).

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

facilitates copyright infringement

You say that like it's a crime.

Knowingly and intentionally facilitating commercial-scale copyright infringement is a crime.

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

If outlook could only be used for sending death threats, then I suspect Microsoft would be in trouble.

That would be a truly awesome product.

Re:Purpose and intents

[fishexe]

Actually isohunt is solely made to search other websites for torrent files. Torrent files are not illegal, and they are not copyrighted.

Actually, the torrent files are illegal if their sole purpose was to facilitate an illegal act (that is, transfer of infringing material). Furthermore, torrent files are copyrighted (automatically) by whoever created the torrent file.

Re:Purpose and intents

[uniquegeek]

They have actively been promoting illegal use. Search by filetype.

A huge proportion of certain filetypes are known to be very likely illegal to download. Google knew damn well what they were doing.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Lord_Breetai]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#DMCA_takedown_notices

Re:Purpose and intents

[mezion]

I've seen kids who were diagnosed with ADHD or aspergers, and It amazes me how similar some of our behaviours are.

There's a good chance you actually have (an undiagnosed case of) one or the other.

Maybe something in the drinking water there? :P

The reason was the articles of Adrian Lamo, who was diagnosed with the "geek syndrome".

"Asperger’s is a mild form of autism that makes social interactions difficult, and can lead to obsessive, highly-focused behavior"
Seriously, how many of the /. geeks are socially awkward and have been highly focused - obsessed even - with computers for many years? (Certainly includes me for as long as I can remember!)

Re:Purpose and intents

[snookums]

>>>Jefferson actually supported IP laws

Considering this long and lengthy argument from 1786, I don't know how can you reach that braiddead conclusion. Note the final bolded sentence.

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

Jefferson's position seems pretty clear to me. He does not believe that the rights to ideas and inventions are property rights. Thus, there are not fundamental rights in the same way that property rights are (in the Lockian philosophy which underpins the US constitution). However, he does recognize the economic importance of protecting the creator's interests in "productions in literature, and [...] inventions in the arts" for a limited time through legislation.

This is in contrast to how many view "intellectual property" today. These people see the the ability to control the use and dissemination of ideas and expressions as a fundamental right which the law protects, rather than an artificial right which the law creates.

Re:Purpose and intents

[smellotron]

Emphasis mine:

I'm sure RMS would be ok with a law that did away with copyrights and said that all code and culture that was distributed should be freely shareable.

You clearly haven't read enough RFCs! Otherwise, you would know that "should" means "maybe" which devolves into "fat chance, sucker!" as soon as the first asshole shows up.

Re:Purpose and intents

[smellotron]

I didn't say anything about intent. I was talking about the portion of my activity which is in violation of the law vs. someone else's activity, which was in direct response to the GGP post.

Intent is at the heart of the consideration of relative guilt of Google vs. IsoHunt. It can be assumed that Google's low percentage of linked torrents (relative to total number of linked documents) indicates relatively honest[1] intent, whereas IsoHunt's high percentage of linked torrents (relative to total number of linked documents) indicates intent to aid copyright infringement. The percentage reasonably indicates intent because a judge cannot read minds, which is why IsoHunt will be screwed in court and not Google. The same logic (percentage implying intent to aid crime) does not apply to speeding.

[1] the notion of "honesty" is used pretty loosely in this context, with the assumption that most torrents exist for the purpose of copyright infringement rather than efficient distribution of Linux distros and World of Warcraft patches.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

oh come on we all know that is what they are aimed at and not for sharing fuckign distros. The play on words with "pirate" for gods sake how can you deny it.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Anonymous Coward]

A gun's main purpose is defense during times of war/legal self defense and hunting.

hahahaha thanks for that not laughed like that in a long time

Re:Purpose and intents

[Schadrach]

So, if I'm a guy who can tell you how to find anyone on campus, I'm part of the problem as well, right? I can certainly tell you where to find the dealers, and even that they are dealers. That's Google in this case -- they know everyone and answer whatever you ask them

Or to make a more accurate point -- let's say I make a new "torrent search engine". All it does is search your terms +torrent +download on Google and scrape the results into a pretty page with my logo. How am I worse than Google?

Re:Purpose and intents

[Risen888]

How is that relevant to my statement?

Re:Purpose and intents

[tehcyder]

We need copyright so we can have successful companies like and products like Canonical and Microsoft.

Like it, nice and subtle trolling.

Re:Purpose and intents

[tehcyder]

Where my kids go to junior school (pre 11 year old) there were a couple of what used to be called troublemakers - messing around in class, refusing to do school work, starting fights, disappearing during school hours, kicking and screaming when teachedrs tell them off, etc.

Nowadays, they've got mild autism, dyslexia, ADHD and fuck knows what else, and their attention-seeking gets them sent to special schools, where their behaviour gets worse as it is excused away as being some sort of mental disorder, when in fact it is a combination of laziness, stupidity, inability to concentrate and stupidity, generally helped along by over-indulgent parents. And being stupid.

All it does is make it harder for people who genuinely have problems with autism, dyslexia, ADHD etc, as people just lump them intogether with the malingerers, wastrels and mummy's boys.

Re:Purpose and intents

[tehcyder]

I've seen kids who were diagnosed with ADHD or aspergers, and It amazes me how similar some of our behaviours are.

There's a good chance you actually have (an undiagnosed case of) one or the other.

No. There isn't.

Re:Purpose and intents

[tehcyder]

And what if one was diagnosed with it by a doctor? What does that make one? How does one tell the difference between people who were formally diagnosed with it and those who have self-diagnosed only?

The difference is that if someone actually has Asperger's (or whatever) people are willing to make allowances. When some obnoxious twat tries to excuse his bad manners, vile personality and appalling social ineptitude as self-diagnosed "Aspies" he's more likely just to get a smack in the mouth.

Re:Purpose and intents

[tehcyder]

Back in high school, the cops did a drug sting on campus. They busted the drug dealers AND the people that told them how to find the drug dealers. being part of the problem means you are part of the problem.

Why would a drug user snitch on his dealer?

Re:Purpose and intents

[tehcyder]

So guns DO kill people after all? And should be banned completely?

I don't think you can argue with the fact that guns do kill people (albeit not autonomously), the question is whether they have any other purpose.

Re:Purpose and intents

[tehcyder]

Speeding is what is called a strict liability offence. It does not require the intent, or more specifically the mens rea. The court only needs to establish the act, or specifically the actus reus.

In the UK recently, someone got away without the customary licence ban for doing 110mph on a 70 mph limit motorway, because he claimed to be scared by the "foreign" lorry he was overtaking (i was on fark recently). Similarly, people have allegedly got away with speeding because they were taking their wife/child to hospital.

Re:Purpose and intents

[tehcyder]

Intent matters only in sentencing.

Just say IANAL rather than wasting time writing nonsense to prove it.

Re:Purpose and intents

[lgw]

In the US it varies from state to state, but in most places the actual offense is "failure to control speed". It's often an "administrative citation" (effectively a tax), not technically a crime, as a work-around to the fact that the constitution gives you specific rights if accused of a crime. In any case, the cop is always supposed to use his judgement before issuing any citation - that's seen as a feature, not a bug.

Re:Purpose and intents

[lgw]

It goes to intent. As others have pointed out: how the service is marketed is more important in establishing intent, but the company's reaction to an obvious usage pattern counts too.

Re:Purpose and intents

[BatGnat]

That logic would make cars illegal "if their sole purpose was to facilitate an illegal act", as well as knives, guns, paperclips, pens, paper, peanut butter, the Stay Puft Marshmellow man....

Re:Purpose and intents

[jones_supa]

You could also see it so that a torrent is a virtualization of it's contents, in other words, the same thing.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Mathinker]

Now, is it at all reasonable to think that IsoHunt and Pirate Bay could, under such a hypothetical condition, still serve a distinctly useful purpose for even 1% of the people who currently use it?

I don't know exactly, since I have no real data on the exact percentage of users which "stayed on", but www.mininova.com is still running after 1.5 years of only supplying legal torrents. So, the answer to your question would seem to be: yes.

All this is academic, since it is obvious to anyone who is technically knowledgeable that P2P is feasible without centralized servers, and this becomes more and more feasible as technology progresses. And even without that, the "sue-a-mole" strategy isn't working particularly well.

Re:Purpose and intents

[Mathinker]

> but if you're asked "Dude, do you know how to get some pot around here?"

Unfortunately, in the technical world we're talking about, the question might actually be "Dude, do you have a file whose SHA256 hash is e0ef7229e64c61596d8be928397e19fcc542ac920c4132106fb1ec2295dd73d1"? And you could certainly be able to say "yes" without knowing squat about what is actually in that file (since it is encrypted, with some other means, say a darknet, or even just a forum totally independent from your file sharing site, being used to distribute the decryption keys and the correspondences betweens hashes and desired content).

Re:Purpose and intents

[Mongoose Disciple]

I think they probably would, actually, just based on business reputation.

I'm not saying I think that's fair; I just think that's probably the way it is.

Re:Purpose and intents

[BatGnat]

No, I couldn't.
A envelope is not a virtualisation of it's contents. An envelope is an envelope. Envelopes are not illegal, no matter what they are used for.

Re:Purpose and intents

[jones_supa]

But a torrent is still a unique representation of the material, not just a blank, anonymous container.

Oh snap!

[Drakkenmensch]

Let's see now what the MPAA intends to do with this information.

Re:Oh snap!

[decipher_saint]

Pinky, I know what we're going to do tonight, TRY TO SUE THE WORLD!

Re:Oh snap!

[Drakkenmensch]

Pinky, I know what we're going to do tonight, TRY TO SUE THE WORLD!

In this version, they're both insane.

Re:Oh snap!

[BassMan449]

Pinky, I know what we're going to do tonight, TRY TO SUE THE WORLD!

In both versions, they're both insane.

FTFY

Re:Oh snap!

[Drakkenmensch]

Well played, sir, well played.

Re:Oh snap!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Bu' how are we gonna do that, Brain?

>It's simple Pinky, we take over the law, then we use the law to destroy all those who get in our way.

Sadly, in this case, the law is something that these companies can easily mess around with and actually win.
The law is merely a stepping stone to the money tree on the other side.
Shit needs to be fixed. BADLY.

Re:Oh snap!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, in this version they are both genius and they'll probably win.

Re:Oh snap!

[Terwin]

I always thought that Pinky was the genius and he just humors Brain for entertainment value.(it gets really boring in a mouse cage all day)

Re:Oh snap!

[Drakkenmensch]

The show creators did mention in interviews that they never specified which one was the insane one...

Re:Oh snap!

[lazyforker]

They'll continue trying to take down Isohunt because they're a much smaller target and their pockets are not as deep. Then they can start working their way up the food chain, using the results of smaller cases as precedent.

Re:Oh snap!

[davester666]

Well, once isoHunt is on the hook for a billion dollars, and a legal precedent has been set, then they sue Google for a zillion dollars!

Then then blow all that money in the next fiscal quarter on hookers and coke. And then they all die from withdrawal symptoms.

So here's hoping they win!

Re:Oh snap!

[chromas]

For googol dollars!

Re:Oh snap!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought "One is a genius, the other's insane!" spelled this out. Is it "genius XOR insane" or "genius OR insane"? In the latter case, can we call Pinky a genius?

Re:Oh snap!

[Drakkenmensch]

Every Google dollar will be worth five British pounds. That is the exchange rate that the bank of England will implement after I kidnap their queen.

Absolutely!

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is how I find the stuff I want at IsoHunt et alia. Their own internal search engines are crap.

Re:Absolutely!

[Jonah Hex]

filetype:torrent

Thank you Google!

HEX

Technicalities

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

Being the largest search engine on the internet by the margin Google is means that it's the largest search engine for nearly EVERY category. Still, some engines were created for torrents, and Google wasn't.

Re:Technicalities

[MozeeToby]

In any event, I don't think "But he's doing it too!" has ever been considered a valid legal defense.

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd imagine it is if you can get to the bottom of why what-they're-doing-too isn't getting them into trouble i.e. it's not illegal.

linking to and distributing *.torrent files is not illegal afaik.

and neither should you want it to be.

Re:Technicalities

[cpu6502]

>>>some engines were created for torrents

Arresting me because my search engine scours & provides links to piratebay.org, torrents.com, et cetera..... makes as little sense as arresting me because I possess photos of murder victims.

I didn't commit the crime. THEY committed the crime. I'm not liable for the acts of others.

Next I suppose you'll arrest google for providing links to child porn (nudist websites).

Re:Technicalities

[Lord Juan]

In any event, I don't think "But he's doing it too!" has ever been considered a valid legal defense.

If it were, we all could get away with fraud and bribing (lobbying) as the rich folks does.

Re:Technicalities

[anyGould]

It does bring up a good point - if IsoHunt turned off the search engine, but still had the database exposed to search engines, are they still doing something wrong?

Re:Technicalities

[Unkyjar]

Next I suppose you'll arrest google for providing links to child porn (nudist websites).

Now that's just silly. You can't arrest a company... I mean, where will you put the handcuffs?

Re:Technicalities

[Hatta]

It should be. Equal protection under the law and all that. Selective enforcement of laws is a major vector for corruption.

Re:Technicalities

[DarwinSurvivor]

But if you can show that setting a precedent of "indexing being infringement" the courts may realize they are about to outlaw search engines in general. Not only does this make the judge think twice, but shines a bit of a light on Google prodding them to possible speak up on your behalf before it becomes THEIR problem as well.

It's actually a neat tactic once you think it through.

Re:Technicalities

[anyGould]

Isn't it a defense (albeit a weaker one) against copyright and trademark claims? If they can show that Google is getting a free pass, then it could be parlayed into a claim that the copyright holders aren't properly defending their claims?

I suspect they're not doing it to convince the judge/jury, as they are to force Google to get involved (since G probably doesn't want any sort of precedent around search result blacklisting.)

Re:Technicalities

[Mongoose Disciple]

I give that argument a roughly 0% chance of success in court.

Seriously, at some point you (well, IsoHunt) have to be pragmatic and deal with the world / legal system as it actually is, not as they'd like it to be.

Re:Technicalities

[nowen2dot]

Selective enforcement of laws is a major vector for corruption.

But suing isn't about enforcement of laws. Selectively defending ownership, perhaps. And there is nothing requiring them to sue everyone they intend to sue all in one lawsuit.

Wait...I'm defending the MPAA? Forget what I said!

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

In criminal cases it can be. "Selective prosecution" is a procedural defense where the defendant argues that the state is prosecuting his class (gender, race, religion, whatever) in discriminatory manner. "He's doing it too, and you're not prosecuting him!" can be evidence to support this defense. (Obviously not applicable in a civil lawsuit.)

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>some engines were created for torrents

Arresting me because my search engine scours & provides links to piratebay.org, torrents.com, et cetera..... makes as little sense as arresting me because I possess photos of murder victims.

A better analogy would be arresting you because you run a web site where users can click a button to cause a murder.

The torrent search engines make copyright infringement easier. While it is conceivable that they might be used to find content that is doesn't infringe copyright, the number of users who are not doing something illegal is insignificantly small.

I didn't commit the crime. THEY committed the crime. I'm not liable for the acts of others.

You helped them commit a crime. You knew it. You didn't try to change your site to prevent the crime. You went out of your way to advertise that your site could be used to commit a crime. You should be held accountable for that.

Next I suppose you'll arrest google for providing links to child porn (nudist websites).

If Google added search features to make finding child porn easy, they should be help liable.

If Google knew people were looking for child porn, and did nothing to mitigate the problem, you could argue it either way.

Google makes a reasonable effort to stop child porn from showing up in search results. They do research into image recognition for the purpose of filtering it. They measure it, and have people working to reduce the odds it shows up in search. They are trying to solve the problem, instead of blaming users while catering to the illegal demands of those same users.

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

So nobody can ever be sued or arrested because nobody else has been sued or arrested for what they did? Or is it that your first motion in court has to be a motion of "we're getting to it?" where you declare your intention to bankrupt yourself attempting to pursue action against every nationwide party you believe might be engaging in the same activity?

Sorry, but that's an incredibly lame position.

Re:Technicalities

[c6gunner]

Nudism isn't child-porn.

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it a defense (albeit a weaker one) against copyright and trademark claims? If they can show that Google is getting a free pass, then it could be parlayed into a claim that the copyright holders aren't properly defending their claims?

Trademark yes, copyright no. Copyright doesn't have the "defend it or lose it" aspect.

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyrights are not treated the same as trademarks or patents. You can selectively choose when to enforce them.

As for the other argument, the claim that google was getting a free pass would only work if this were a criminal case, not a civil one. The justice system is required to investigate and prosecute any case where they have reasonable evidence of a crime occurring as a public duty. A civil litigant has no duty to anyone but themselves, or in the case of a company, their shareholders.

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope you choke on your own dick.

Re:Technicalities

[Hatta]

So nobody can ever be sued or arrested because nobody else has been sued or arrested for what they did?

That's a fair point. Obviously we need some way to get started. Lets prioritize by wealth, which is roughly equivalent to power. If you can point to someone wealthier than you who is doing the same thing and hasn't been prosecuted you're off the hook.

bankrupt yourself attempting to pursue action against every nationwide party you believe might be engaging in the same activity

If you can't enforce the law against everyone, the law is unenforceable and should be null for that reason alone.

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

CEO?

CFO?

COO?

CTO?

There are plenty. Companies are not invulnerable. It happened quite often that managers have been arrested and jailed.

Re:Technicalities

[GNious]

I mean, where will you put the handcuffs?

usually on someone in upper middle-management or a junior member of the exec team, whoever is expendable.

Re:Technicalities

[KnownIssues]

It seems like it should be when your judgments are based on precedence (in the US). I can sue a few poor companies for something and win because they don't have the money to defend themselves and then once I have a few easy wins under my belt, then I can go after the guys with bigger pockets because they judges are more likely to weigh the existing precedent in my favor than they would have been with a blank slate.

Re:Technicalities

[CastrTroy]

Depends on who's looking at it. I'm pretty sure if you had a stash of 15,000 nudist photos on your computer, they could convict you of child pornography possession.

Re:Technicalities

[malignant_minded]

Mod Parent Up I guess the issue would still be that their whole business model is for indexing torrents though

Re:Technicalities

[Aighearach]

There is no crime, there is no arrest, civil courts use different law than criminal courts, etc, etc.

IANAL but at least I know that much.

Re:Technicalities

[lgw]

While I think it's pretty silly that any sort of nudism is sort of automatically considered porn, there's a pedophile witch hunt on in America, and people have been convicted for possesion of child porn even for having non-nude pictures of children. I'm not sure what the legal arguments were, but I suspect they were something like "he looks like a pedophile, get a rope". I sure as Hell wouldn't want anything to do with any nudism pictures or films in America today.

Re:Technicalities

[Aighearach]

Yeah, because you put them in a subfolder under "pr0n."

If they were under Photography->Figure Studies it would be a very different case.

The real cases really do often come down to the circumstantial factors.

Re:Technicalities

[slazzy]

Actually for another intellectual property type, trademarks, that is an important argument when trademarks become common names and no longer protected.

Re:Technicalities

[h4rr4r]

Google has such a feature to make finding torrents easy, filetype:torrent.

Re:Technicalities

[PJ6]

In any event, I don't think "But he's doing it too!" has ever been considered a valid legal defense.

But there's a kernel of truth in the sentiment. I've always wondered what "parity laws" would be like, and if they could ever be practically implemented.

Re:Technicalities

[fnj]

But you do realize that corruption is the driving engine for the US Federal government, and heck, most other governments in the world.

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

Selective enforcement is only a possible defense to actions by government (state and local, as well as federal). There is absolutely no law that says a non-government entity can't pick and choose who they sue. In simpler terms, "but all the other kids get to do it," still isn't a legal justification and probably didn't fly with your parents, either. I never worked with mine.

Re:Technicalities

[fishexe]

In any event, I don't think "But he's doing it too!" has ever been considered a valid legal defense.

In criminal cases it has been, under very specific circumstances: only if you can show the court that the reason "he" isn't getting arrested is that law enforcement personnel are acting on a discriminatory motive. If you can show that, then you have a selective prosecution defense, but it's very, very hard to get that to fly; the prosecutor gets to present whatever non-discriminatory reasons they can think of (i.e. we only prosecute high-profile offenders in order to deter others, we just changed our policy to prioritize this type of crime, the guy that wasn't prosecuted was less dangerous, et cetera, et cetera) and these are almost always accepted by the court.

Of course, none of that applies to this case, which is a civil suit. Plaintiffs can choose to sue or not to sue whoever the hell they want.

Re:Technicalities

[feepness]

It should be. Equal protection under the law and all that. Selective enforcement of laws is a major vector for corruption.

But other countries do it too!

Re:Technicalities

[EdIII]

Not that I am supporting the MPAA by any stretch of the imagination but there is a difference between isoHunt and Google.

isoHunt is running a public tracker (at least I assume it is doing so like TPB). In a very real sense isoHunt is facilitating the technological infrastructure that allows torrents to work. It plays an active role in the transfer of data, even just by providing peers, while Google plays a passive role in merely indexing the data and allowing you to search it.

Now if isoHunt did not run a tracker at all and merely indexed torrent files and users used DHT to find peers on their own, then I would say it is more passive like Google.

I completely agree with your sentiment about equal protection under the law. Just want to point out that the two entities are not doing the same thing.

Re:Technicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

intent matters

Re:Technicalities

[Devoidoid]

If the pix are of underage kids, or kids who look like they might be underage, it doesn't matter how you label the folder, or even if they're fully clothed. The US DOJ will say they're child porn if they want to. This is according to US law, in other countries YMMV.

Yeah, but Google has lawyers

[elrous0]

Real lawyers, and lots of them.

Re:Yeah, but Google has lawyers

[Yvanhoe]

They are not real lawyers. They are led by geeks. They evolved. Some pose as IP lawyers. And they have a plan.

Re:Yeah, but Google has lawyers

[rawler]

And a business besides search engine for pirated content.

Re:Yeah, but Google has lawyers

[gknoy]

And soon, they will execute that plan!

Sorry, my kid's been watching too much Bolt.

Re:Yeah, but Google has lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

I see what you did there.

Re:Yeah, but Google has lawyers

[ieatcookies]

And it's a good thing thing they do, especially when folks like ISOHunt try to bring everyone down with them.

Re:Yeah, but Google has lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for BSG obscure reference

Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

The US government already "knows" that Google is the bigger problem. You don't really think that Congress' threat of investigating Google for antitrust violations is really about antitrust violations do you?

Cloud logo?

[Tuan121]

Is everything related to the internet suddenly lumped in with the Cloud now?

Re:Cloud logo?

[geminidomino]

It has been for a long time. A cloud was the symbol used to represent "out there" on networking diagrams for years before the marketing asshats got a hold of it and started convincing morons that it actually meant something "new and fancy"

Re:Cloud logo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your objection is reasonable. From a purely graphical point of view, though, that cloud does indeed appear to be raining down a torrent of bits.

v0rtex

[merlock18]

I thought google owned v0rtex.appspot.com, a torrent search engine.
whois doesnt agree...
Otherwise, I know no one who uses google to get .torrents... demonoid is the flavor of the week, im told.

Google to IsoHunt

[ashvagan]

Mini-me, you complete me!

What Google is doing is irrelevant to this case

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the MPAA is suing IsoHunt not Google. What Google is doing doesn't matter as far as this case is concerned; they aren't a party to the case. Maybe the MPAA will go after Google next (not likely).

This is a typical infringer strategy: tell the court that some one else is doing it and more of it. Hasn't mattered in the past and will not matter in this case. The MPAA gets to choose who it wants to sue and when.

Re:What Google is doing is irrelevant to this case

[Aighearach]

YANAL

Re:What Google is doing is irrelevant to this case

[Anonymous Coward]

tell the court that some one else is doing it and more of it.

Close, but not quite. They're telling the court that someone else is doing it, and more of it, but since that other party is "obviously" innocent, then the court should deduct a certain conclusion.

Think of it as an indirect proof. If Isohunt is guilty, then Google is guilty. Then wave your hands and say, "But we all know Google is innocent." Once that is accepted, it's east from there: Isohunt must be innocent too, since Isohunt is innocenter that Google.

BTW, parties that aren't part of the case are sometimes relevant. If I shoot someone because they were holding my dog over a shredding machine and I am found not guilty, then you can mention that as a precedent when you are charged with shooting someone while they were holding your baby over a shredding machine. Get it? It works, as long as people don't think too much about Google's innocence.

Re:What Google is doing is irrelevant to this case

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if google is not a part of THIS court-case, it's an important discussion.
(But It should be part of the case, equal protection under the law ect).

The thing is, google is relevant because you can do stuff like file:.torrent in search, WHICH MAKES IT THE BEST AND BIGGEST site for searching torrent-files.
Just because they don't SPECIALISE in it, doesn't mean it's not illegal. But they are allowed to do this because:
They are rich. In the USA, the land of the free, it is only the MONEY that is free (money=power to be free).

Re:What Google is doing is irrelevant to this case

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought there was some kind of "if you don't protect it, it's not protected" kind of law; maybe that's trademark law, though.

What happened to torrents are free speech?

[BlueCoder]

There can be no denying that torrents are speech. Torrent files in and of themselves are only contact data.

The supreme court can rule that giving money to political causes is free speech but publishing the phone number of a hooker isn't?

Re:What happened to torrents are free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shall I understand that you want all these things protected, including giving money to political causes?

Re:What happened to torrents are free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that isoHunt, et al. are providing links to torrents. A torrent itself is essentially a hash of a file and a list of trackers (if it's a tracked torrent). The tracker tells you who has the files.

So at the end of the day the MPAA is suing someone for providing links to links to links to files.

Re:What happened to torrents are free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but you have to pay for hookers..
Last I remember .torrents also can contain a minute fraction of the "infringing" data too.

Oh don't be silly.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the Google homepage:
http://www.google.com/
It has no mention of any particular search terms at all, let alone intent.

This is the IsoHunt homepage:
http://isohunt.com/
It mentions the last 10 searches - which aren't exactly searches for Linux distributions - and what's that in the top right? Oh! How lovely, I can click through to the latest Video, TV, Game, etc. releases. What's more - I can add a release!

Even if I search for "Toy Story 3", these are Google's first page results (I'm logged out, so no personalized search):

• Toy Story 3 official website
• Toy Story 3 at imdb
• Toy Story 3 at wikipedia
• News results for Toy Story 3
• Videos for Toy Story 3 (Trailer 2 at YouTube and Trailer at Apple)
• Toy Story 3 Movie Reviews, etc. at Rotten Tomatoes
• Toy Story 3 Movie trailers at Apple
• Amazon.com: Toy Story 3
• Toy Story 3 official site in the UK
• Toy Story 3 at Pixar
• Toy Story 3 at Coming Soon.

Now let's try that at IsoHunt.

• Toy Story 3 720p TC XviD AC3-KiNGDOM (Kingdom-Release)
• Toy Story 3 (2010) DVDRip (animation) XviD - OPTiC
• Toy Story 3 (2010) - DVDRip XviD - Silent
• Toy.Story.3.2010.PROPER.DVDRip.XviD-TASTE
• Toy Story 3.2010.CAM.XVID.LU
• Toy Story 3 (2010) - English DvDRip XviD - PrisM
• Toy Story 3 2010 BDRip XViD-IMAGiNE
• Toy Story 3 2010 720p BRRip x264-HDLiTE
• Toy.Story.3-RELOADED
• 2010]DVDRip[Xvid]AC3 1[E... Toy Story Trilogy

"But, AC," you say, "if you add filetype:torrent in the Google search, then you'll also get a bunch of these types of results".
Well no shit - that's partially the point though, isn't it? With Google, I have to explicitly tell the search engine that I'm looking for something a little more specific, generally associated with copies/rips/cams of whatever I'm looking for. With IsoHunt, I don't have to.
It may seem like an insignificant difference, but to the courts in various jurisdictions, all of these 'insignificant' differences add up to intent.

Anybody trying to argue that there's no difference between sites like IsoHunt and Google - either philosophical or technical - needs to be hit over the head by a clue-by-four and some sense of reality.

But here's to hoping that the judge finds they have a strong case and either the industry has to back off from these sites and we can all do the Information wants to Free-as-in-beer dance, or the industry will just have to poke at Google and get a deal from them (already happened for YouTube anyway) and then eye these sites again for further lawsuits demanding either a deal or shutdown.

Re:Oh don't be silly.

[mistiry]

So if I added a Google Search box to my website and pre-filled it with "filetype:torrent", would I be at risk of being sued for facilitating copyright infringement?

Re:Oh don't be silly.

[Kjella]

"But, AC," you say, "if you add filetype:torrent in the Google search, then you'll also get a bunch of these types of results".
Well no shit - that's partially the point though, isn't it? With Google, I have to explicitly tell the search engine that I'm looking for something a little more specific, generally associated with copies/rips/cams of whatever I'm looking for. With IsoHunt, I don't have to.

If you're specifically searching for something where you know you won't find a legitimate copy, it's not strange that the top hits are pirated copies. It's not so different from going to the Bangkok market and search for "Gucci handbags". Just because I make a map of it pointing you to the store I don't take any responsibility for what the store sells, it's just what my market-crawling robot (to improve the analog) read on the sign.

Re:Oh don't be silly.

[Gutboy]

Hmm, when I type in "toy story 3" google suggests that I'm looking for "toy story 3 dvd", "toy story 3 download", "toy story 3 download free"."toy story 3 dolls". Seems Google is suggesting that I might want to download it.

Re:Oh don't be silly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously there's a lot of gray area - a favorite pastime of many in order to muddy the already not-so-clear waters.

What if you have a search box with "filetype:torrent" pre-filled on your website? Could you be facilitating copyright infringement? Possibly so - although you said you're pre-filling it, which means somebody could probably just remove it. In addition, I suspect it would take you to Google's regular results. In essence, it would be little different from the user themselves adding "filetype:torrent".

But what if you don't have that pre-filled and instead just add that, via scripting (client or serverside), before sending the user off to Google? Well things get a bit more tricky there, but such a search would still show as such in the Google results page.

Now what if you're using the Google search API to not only search, but also get the results yourself and display them on your page? Ahhh, now we're getting somewhere. I'd imagine that, yes, you'd be facilitating copyright infringement, albeit on a fairly small level.
"But wait," you say, "the results are from Google.. surely -they- are the facilitator?". But alas - you're the one providing the front-end for these specific searches.

We could go on for a bit like this, but let's face it... IsoHunt -isn't- just a front-end to search?q=filetype%3Atorrent+"toy+story+3" on Google. By the time you're adding specific links, detailed information on the actual downloads, community ratings, perform filtering to remove questionable or bogus content, and so forth and so on, you're so far from being 'like' Google that it's completely absurd to claim otherwise as IsoHunt seems to be doing.

I honestly don't know where they / their lawyer think(s) they're going with that sub-argument. But, again, perhaps they'll win by some manner of letter-of-the-law thing rather than common sense. It's fun times either way.

Re:Oh don't be silly.

[Tiger4]

Intent:
1. Purchase a gun. Generally legal (in the US).
2. Purchase bullets. Also generally legal
3. Load the gun. Legal
4. Pick up the gun and fire it. Probably legal
5. Fire the gun at big guy charging at you. Probably legal, but hire a good lawyer and have a good story waiting.
6. You knew the guy didn't want to be bothered, was trying to avoid you, you made the purchases just before the meeting, and you brought the gun to the meeting? Hire two more good lawyers and pray you get a stupid and/or sympathetic judge and jury.

Any of the acts listed might be legal, standing alone. But put together, it looks like a construction for a deliberate criminal act.

Re:Oh don't be silly.

[Xtifr]

Depends on whether it could be argued that you fall afoul of the Inducement Rule. If you just have the search box and no description, it would be hard to argue that you were "promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement", On the other hand, if it were labeled "Use this to find popular TV shows", then there's a good chance that it could be considered inducement.

It's pretty clear that Google does not promote the illegal use of their system, so the argument presented in the slashdot summary is basically meaningless. Whether IsoHunt mentioned the inducement rule in their brief, I don't know, but if they didn't, it's unlikely to carry much weight.

Re:Oh don't be silly.

[Anthony Mouse]

By the time you're adding specific links, detailed information on the actual downloads, community ratings, perform filtering to remove questionable or bogus content, and so forth and so on, you're so far from being 'like' Google that it's completely absurd to claim otherwise as IsoHunt seems to be doing.

Right, in that case it sounds like you're more like YouTube, except that you're not actually hosting the videos. So that doesn't seem to be it either.

Re:Oh don't be silly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi there! Same AC here. I see you are marked as +4 Interesting, and it is indeed interesting because those are not the results that I am getting.

Are you currently logged into your Google Account, perhaps?

My results at Google.com (and through the FireFox 3 search bar) are:

• on ice
• games
• cast
• quotes
• characters
• wiki
• toys
• dvd
• imdb

Note that I'm not logged into Google, I'm using Private Browsing mode, -and- I tried through a VPN connection in Texas to see if locale made any difference (I'm in a country where downloading is fairly mainstream in society due to be it being legal for music/films/series, so if anything I would expect results like yours for my original locale).

You could also try using the following, which uses the Google Suggest API as well, but results are alightly different and in a different order:
http://www.suggestexplorer.com/?q=toy+story+3

There may be other front-ends to Google Suggest that you could try.

Note that Google of course is also not the only game in town, and while other search engines may have a lower userbase and slightly different demographic, I think it stands to reason that search terms would be roughly equivalent. So without further ado..

Yahoo:

• trailer
• games
• movie
• release date
• on ice
• toy story 3d
• reviews
• toys
• characters
• actor ken doll toy story 3

Bing:

• trailer
• games
• release date
• review
• coloring pages
• cast
• party supplies

If indeed it does appear that Google is suggesting to you that those are results you may be interested in, while the front-end does not, then that may say more about you than it does about Google. If, on the other hand, you still get those results even through third party front-ends, I will sit completely baffled.

Re:Oh don't be silly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excepting that YouTube falls under a different regulation altogether. At least in the U.S.; As much as the DMCA is hated on, its Safe Harbor provision is exactly what YouTube gets to wave around anytime there's parties who cry foul. File DMCA complaint (usually done by legal), wait for video to be removed (they're rarely challenged), and it's back up the next day or so, requiring a new DMCA complaint.

If not for the DMCA (and provisions in other jurisdictions - the EU has a similar rule, for example) then YouTube would - or at the very least, should - be in hotter waters as YouTube actually -does- host the content. They wouldn't be merely facilitating the infringement, they would -be- the infringing party (specifically of duplication and distribution rights).

Finally, YouTube has of course reached agreements for compensation to several parties (UMG, Sony, CBS, Warner, etc. - example: http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2009/09/30/warner-renews-youtube-agreement/ ).

That said.. even without that, there's no clear intent on the side of YouTube to promote copyright infringement in any way, shape or form. IsoHunt, certainly thanks to those handy links, is far more suspect.

Re:the reasoning of an 8-year old child

[BJ_Covert_Action]

So, you chastise IsoHunt for using the defense of an 8 year old, and back up that position with the logic and reasoning of...errrr...an 8 year old:

Well kid, two wrongs don't make a right...

Maybe you missed the memo, but the world got more complicated than that after kindergarten.

Go ahead MPAA...

[MacGyver2210]

Sue Google. I can't wait to watch you and your bullshit case go down in flames faster than the fucking Hindenburg.

Re:the reasoning of an 8-year old child

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine isohunt is your nephew and google is someone your age. They both called that little girl a "biatch". Guess who gets called out for it?

Going after google is probably *quite* intimidating.

Wonder what would happen...

[MrNemesis]

...if ISOhunt changed their search engine for a day, so that any searches were just forwarded to google with a filetype:torrent string appended?

It wouldn't make any difference to the legal case of course, which is more about ISOhunt being poor and accessible (and therefore prosecutable), unlike google. It'll also show users what magic incantations they need to mutter if/when torrent aggregators are closed, and maybe then we'll see MPAA vs. Google.

I don't torrent myself, I just buy lots of DVD's (except when I can't get a hold of a work by legitimate means - I'm not aware of anyone who's able to sell Dunvavi Karatan Adam for instance), but there are plenty of people at work who do (well, torrent and newsgroups), and every so often you'll come in and find an unmarked 500GB drive on your desk. People who don't contribute to the drive but copy stuff from it have to buy the first round at the pub. People who bring in a drive are excused from buying rounds next time at the pub. Works remarkably well for groups of 5-10 people.

P.S. I'm told rounds aren't that common outside of the UK, but I'm thinking that, seeing as they're obviously a facilitator of illegal file sharing, they should be banned. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BritishPubs

Re:Wonder what would happen...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I use filetype:torrent the first few pages of hits are just links to isohunt.

Re:the reasoning of an 8-year old child

[gman003]

On the contrary, it's a brilliant move. They essentially just named Google as a co-defendant (not really, but the effect is similar), which means now Google is providing lawyers and cash towards their side, if only to preemptively defend themselves. Google vs MAFIAA is a much fairer fight than IsoHunt vs MAFIAA.

Re:the reasoning of an 8-year old child

[gman003]

Of course, that doesn't mean the argument isn't childish. It just means that your nephew likely has a career in law ahead of him.

Re:the reasoning of an 8-year old child

[vux984]

Well kid, two wrongs don't make a right...

You went the wrong way with it.

The assumption is that what google does is not wrong.

The point of IsoHunt's defense is not that "two wrongs make a right", but rather that google is doing nothing wrong, and that isohunt is really just a search engine like google, and therefore, like google, isohunt is not doing anything wrong.

To paraphrase your analogy:

"They sound like my 8 year old nephew who protested the other day when he was chastised for calling his little dog a "bitch", because he heard a veterinarian call his dog a bitch so why couldn't he?"

Frankly I'd be proud if my 8 year old made that argument. Its a good argument.

Re:the reasoning of an 8-year old child

[destroygbiv]

You're missing the point. They're still arguing over whether or not what they've done is illegal. Paramount to your nephew calling his little sister "Beach," getting in trouble, and arguing that it's a nickname that even the teacher uses when referring to her. Isohunt: What I did is not illegal. Court: Yes it was, this is what you did. Isohunt: No, that is not illegal. See, Google does it and you don't prosecute them. Precedent for its legality.

Already tried

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pirate Bay tried this defense. Didn't work out too well for them now, did it?

Re:Already tried

[green1]

I missed the part where the Pirate Bay wasn't still up and running...

Re:Already tried

[shentino]

The pirate bay got shafted by judges on the MAFIAA's payroll.

Woudln't suprise me....

[JustAnotherIdiot]

...if MPAA found IsoHunt through Google to begin with.

Intent and Ratios

[BitZtream]

Compare the ratio of links to pirated material on Google to that on IsoHunt. IsoHunt loses.

Compare the response of Google to a takedown request to that of IsoHunt. IsoHunt loses.

Google makes at least a minimal attempt at not being a part of the distribution chain, IsoHunt on the other hand makes no attempt. IsoHunt loses.

You can argue that IsoHunt isn't doing anything wrong all you want, and you'll be a part of the small minority of idiots who think they'll win this battle. Good luck with that.

Re:Intent and Ratios

[Anonymous Coward]

You can argue that IsoHunt isn't doing anything wrong all you want, and you'll be a part of the small minority of idiots who think they'll win this battle. Good luck with that.

Or I can argue they aren't doing anything wrong and am in no way compelled to agree with the clause that follows. Fuck you internet clown.

Re:Intent and Ratios

[Hydian]

What can you request them to take down? They don't host any content.

Re:Intent and Ratios

[gknoy]

- Google has all of the pirated links, Isohunt only has some of them. ;)
- I thought IsoHunt had been fairly quick on takedowns when requested? I might be mixing them up with someone else.

Re:Intent and Ratios

[Anonymous Coward]

Where there is a will, there is a way. Someday, each and every one of us will have the right to have and host our own private network and interexchange with our small (or large) community of friends. That community, or network of communities should and always will have the right to share. Any one should be able to have their own private peer to peer network and shut out all these money grubbing a-holes like MPAA and Google.

Re:Intent and Ratios

[Legal.Troll]

I lol'd at this sensible comment and can't bear to read the rabid responses which I'm sure quickly followed.

Re:Intent and Ratios

[fishexe]

What can you request them to take down? They don't host any content.

The links. Duh.

Re:Intent and Ratios

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh...IsoHunt responds to all takedown requests. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#DMCA_takedown_notices

So then the only thing left in your random rant is "ratio"...which is good to know. If I plan on running an illegal empire, I'll be sure to balance it out with a proper ratio of legal activity too.

Re:Intent and Ratios

[Anonymous Coward]

i am glad you feel so smug in your turtleneck to pounce verdicts about isohunt.

Google and Isohunt are both indexing sites. Google and Isohunt do things in a different manner regarding taketowns, but they both do them, so do some research please. Google has a vastly different user-base, re: the world and they use their financial uber-wealth to buy up all tech and new skills relevant in making things develop in the shape they seem to feel is determinant as the google future.

if you talk about a distribution chain, think about google scanning and upping thousands of books without permission from authors still living or under current copywrite... google does as it pleases and then changes internet systems to fit with its standards.

  isohunt is not a mega-brand - its is really a one-pony show that is fighting the good fight. its a good stallion really, and i wish it all the best.

i am proud of this site sticking in for the long haul. i am not involved with either company. i believe in net neutrality, open sharing, and supporting artists directly.

if i am one of your idiots, i'd rather be such that anywhere near your side of the card table.

Intent

[grahamlord86]

As with TPB case, this is about Intent.

Google is not meant for searching for pirated material.

IsoHunt is a website designed and intended for sharing pirated material.

Just because some people use a crowbar to break into a house doesn't make a crowbar inherently evil, but put the crowbar in a Burglar's Toolkit, and then you've got a kit intended for crime.

As with TPB, I hope the IsoHunt guys win, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking their argument is justified, and they're on a par with google- their argument is a pedantic technicality.

Re:Intent

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhhhhhh I see.

Plan:
Create a website IsoBarn.com that people can use to upload torrents to (that .com site currently doesn't exist).
Normal user-agents see only an upload page, but can not search or view torrents
A googlebot user-agent sees the uploaded torrents, together with a direct link to the actual .torrent file and a description
Through SEO get a high page rank on Google

Solution: use Google for the tricky bit (searching for files), Google is not responsible because of the high rubbish-to-goodstuff ratio, IsoBarn is not actively promoting what users upload to it by not offering a way to directly search for it.

It's True!

[DarthVain]

When ISOHunt is down, I just Google it and get it from someplace else.

It will come down to intent however. Google is ubiquitous and ISOHunt is a "wretched hive of scum and villainy".

I don't see the big deal however, other than on moral or ideal grounds (information should be free man! puff puff!). The law only applies for those with businesses operating within the US. Move your servers to Kerblackistan and be done with it. Poof. Why would you want to host in the US anyway? That's one of the cool things about this whole Internet thing...

Then the US has to try and get the case tried in Kerblackistan, and good luck with that! Just don't go to Sweden, apparently they are pushovers there.

Re:It's True!

[mark-t]

If it does, as you suggest, come down to a matter of intent, how do they legally show intent in a courtroom?

Re:It's True!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even understand why people use websites based in the US in the first place. Well, some websites are OK to use, but many aren't. It's a well-known fact that you have no privacy in the USA. The law says the FBI can't access your Facebook account without a warrant, but that won't stop the FBI from doing it anyway if they want to and they will get away with it even if they break laws.
I heard more and more Canadian businesses are cutting ties with US businesses. Even Canadian universities now do not share any info about their students with US universities. All because the US government does not respect privacy. Any personal info that is somehow tied to the USA can be considered compromised.
There is a reason why I do not have a Twitter and FB account.

Re:It's True!

[DarthVain]

Well it should be an interesting case. Plenty of interesting arguments to be made either way.

I think technically speaking ISOHunt is in the right (abit shady), however the other side has political clout, which while it shouldn't enter the courtroom it probably will. There will be tremendous pressure on the court to find ISOHunt guilty of something.

Likely one of the arguments will be that ISOHunt links are 90% copyrighted products and therefor the intent is that in mind. If I was ISOHunt's lawyer I would then continue along the Google argument and say 90% of Google's links are porn, so they should be considered as that as their intent.

What I learned...

[Xerolooper]

Use Google to search for torrent files. Thanks for the heads up. :) Honestly though Torrentz have jumped the shark so to speak. Most people I know have moved on to other means of file sharing. Anytime I download a torrent file I get a nasty email from my ISP stating that I was flagged for copyright infringement by a third party.
[rant]As for the people at isoHunt I wish them well and hope they aren't treated to badly. I say that because the powers that be seem to really over react to what they were doing. I think a lot of it is that they don't understand what it is so they fear it. On the other side of the coin technicalities aside they had to know that they were doing something that was not completely legit. Should they be publicly executed hell no. Should they be put out of business perhaps. That should be determined on the merits of sharing other peoples work without monetary compensation.
We may justify downloading some things that we haven't paid the asking price for by saying I can't afford it anyway so I am not hurting them. But if it is free what motivation do we have as a society on a whole to get out there and earn the asking price so we can afford it. I really think the music industry especially shot themselves in the foot by gouging in the 90's for CD's. If they had lowered prices instead of raising them I doubt the majority of their customers would have even given file sharing a second thought. Except for the occasional sneaker net sharing it would have been something that only happened on college campuses. They could have kept customers by innovating like including collectible coins or 3d album art that could not be easily scanned. But no they raised the prices even more and then start litigating. [/rant]
I agree the fines they charge file sharers are ridiculous and I realize isoHunt is not even actually sharing the files just pointers. I think their argument is meant to point out that what they are doing is not that different from Google. Honestly if they can implicate Google then some really good lawyers are most likely going to be coming to bat. The name does not imply illegal torrents ISO's are disk images that could be anything. Many Linux distributions are legitimately available through torrent as ISO files.

Re:What I learned...

[Anonymous Showered]

Use Google to search for torrent files. Thanks for the heads up. :) Honestly though Torrentz have jumped the shark so to speak. Most people I know have moved on to other means of file sharing. Anytime I download a torrent file I get a nasty email from my ISP stating that I was flagged for copyright infringement by a third party.

Public trackers are just that: public trackers. Your IP will be listed as a leecher/seeder.

Protip: don't forget about encryption.

Re:What I learned...

[Anonymous Coward]

Protip: get a decent ISP. Or, if that's not available, get a decent proxy provider, preferably in a country that doesn't give a rats ass about copyright infringement.

Re:the reasoning of an 8-year old child

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you like being taller than all the other kids in kindergarten?

The Board of Review.

[westlake]

"Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

Men change.

Jefferson's position on the granting of patents changed through the years. In his article "Godfather of American Invention," Silvio Bedini notes that in 1787 Jefferson's opposition to monopoly in any form led him to oppose patents. But by 1789, Jefferson's firm opposition had weakened. Writing to James Madison, Jefferson said he approved the Bill of Rights as far as it went, but would like to see the addition of an article specifying that "Monopolies may be allowed to person for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding --- years, but for no longer term and for no other purpose."

In 1789, while Jefferson was still in Paris...the first patent act was enacted into law April 10, 1790. Under the new law, the Secretaries of War and State and the Attorney General constituted a three-man review board, with the Secretary of State (Jefferson), playing the leading role. Two months after the law was passed, Jefferson remarked it had "given a spring to invention beyond his conception."

Jefferson continued to perform his patent office duties until the patent act of February 21, 1793...

[T]he new law made the granting of patents almost entirely an automatic matter; the three-man review board was replaced by an administrative structure. In 1802, Secretary of State James Madison created a separate patent office for handling all claims.

In 1836, the patent law was completely rewritten, effecting a compromise of sorts between the strictness of Jefferson's tenure and the free-wheeling acceptance of all patent claims during the intervening years. The 1836 law is still in effect today.

Guiding Jefferson while patents came to him for review was the belief that patents should be given to particular machines, not to all possible applications or uses of them; that mere change in material or form gave no claim; and that exclusive rights of an invention must always be considered in terms of its social benefit.

Quoting Jefferson on invention and intellectual property rights is not without irony.

Jefferson was notoriously spendthrift. Living his life one jump ahead of the sheriff, as a proper Southern gentleman should.

Jefferson's architecture and invention were - with the exception of an early moldboard plow - almost exclusively - meant for use by men of his own race and class.

This was not man who was going to invent bifocals, a lightening rod or a Franklin stove. This was not a man who was going to ignite an industrial revolution.

Jefferson's workforce was slave labor.

He was obliged neither to publicly acknowledge a slave's contributions or to pay for them - and any promises of emancipation he may have made would prove empty. He was bankrupt.

He was obliged to educate his workforce - and that in Virginia would become dangerous even before his body was cold.

part of the problem

[rusl]

It's dispiriting to read all the geeks and "smart" people who would rather prove how clever they are by putting down isohunt than actually help or, you know, care. Whatever technical BS arguments you may want to make opposing the RIAA/MPAA scams should be a duty that takes precedence over quipping on how much "pirate" this or that.

You KNOW how computers work (they are copying machines) and you know how hypocritical is the quest to protect the "content" or "IP" of the very richest only.

CALLED IT!

[Frosty-B-Bad]

Back in November last year:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1874644&cid=34278914
- Sometimes this crap is to easy

So, we can hope this bill is harmless and holds up in court for real copyright infringement cases (if it passes the house which I hope it doesn't), or we can assume lawyers will use this to basically shut down the internet, or at least the search part of it, I mean, Google is an information company, which provides a massive search for illegal files, I can see it in court now

Google Lawyer: "But your honor we do not target these rouge servers with illegal files, they are just massively linked and our engine lists them automatically"

DA: "No sir, I did a search for "warez" on Google.com and it said displaying 25 of 5,019,193,012 sites.. which proves they just provide illegal software"

Judge: Point taken, shut them down! Who's next!

This is so obvious it hurts..

Re:the reasoning of an 8-year old child

[smellotron]

Well kid, two wrongs don't make a right...

Maybe you missed the memo, but the world got more complicated than that after kindergarten.

Are you suggesting that complex social situations render simple guidelines worthless? I don't care how complex the world can be; "two wrongs don't make a right" is always a good starting point.

Way to take it out of context

[fishexe]

Beginning where you left off:

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.

The way you cut it off makes it sound like Jefferson thought IP was contrary to nature. In actuality, he thought IP had no natural justification but could have pragmatic justifications. If you want us to take you seriously, try being honest for once.