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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."
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.
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.
In any event, I don't think "But he's doing it too!" has ever been considered a valid legal defense.
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.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
It should be. Equal protection under the law and all that. Selective enforcement of laws is a major vector for corruption.
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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.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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.
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):
Now let's try that at IsoHunt.
"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.
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
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.