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IsoHunt Settles With MPAA, Will Shut Down And Pay Up to $110 Million
hypnosec writes "The MPAA and Gary Fung, owner of IsoHunt.com, have settled their case out of court, with the torrent indexing site closing as part of the deal. The judge presiding over the MPAA vs. IsoHunt.com case, Jacqueline Chooljian, canceled the hearing which was planned after she was informed that both the parties have settled outside court. 'The website isoHunt.com today agreed to halt all operations worldwide in connection with a settlement of the major movie studios' landmark copyright lawsuit against the site and its operator Gary Fung' reads the press release."
Only a few days after the MPAA was accosted by the judge for seeking damages several times the total worth of isoHunt: "But if you strip him of all his assets — and you’re suggesting that a much lesser number of copyright infringements would accomplish that, where is the deterrence by telling the world that you took someone’s resources away because of illegal conduct entirely or 50 times over?" Still, the settlement seems unfair: The MPAA has asked the court for $110 million, when the MPAA itself admitted that isoHunt only has $5 or $6 million. So much for the optimism for isoHunt's successor.
The more will slip through your fingers.
The best torrent search engine ever will never bow to this kind of bullying crap. Long live Google!
And that is why you go for fully decentralized services, kids.
Ezekiel 23:20
MPAA demanding money for imaginary damage done to imaginery property? Pay them with monopoly money.
TOR is a poor choice for media sharing as it's not P2P. Freenet was written as secure P2P from the ground up, and has had plenty of security review. While I don't trust anything to be safe from the NSA, the known attacks require far more resources than the *AA will ever use.
I doubt it's any faster than TOR, but being P2P if people actually started using it instead of open torrents, it would be.
The problem of course is "network effect". There's no content because no one uses it and vice versa. But it is the correct technical solution, with years in the field and years of security review.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Still, the settlement seems unfair: The MPAA has asked the court for $110 million, when the MPAA itself admitted that isoHunt only has $5 or $6 million.
The legal system does not hand out punishment on the basis of whether or not the defendant can pay for it; It hands it out on the basis of how much harm was done. If you run someone over and they're a cripple for the rest of their life, the Judge doesn't say "Well, you only got $20 and a cracker... so give me the $20 and we're even." You are fined and jailed on the basis of how much pain and suffering that person endured.
Unfortunately, the law says that every time you share an MP3, god kills $150,000 worth of kittens. Statutory damages don't allow for any discretion on the part of the judge. Thank Congress for that.
And the argument can also be made that proportional damages levied against very wealthy individuals or corporations is good practice, though it doesn't often happen. Fining people for dumping millions of gallons of toxic waste into the ocean the maximum $50,000 per infraction means they just video tape the whole thing, send in the tape and a check for $50,000 because it's cheaper than going to court, and much, much cheaper than disposing of the waste properly. But alas, that is not how the law is written.
The system is totally broken, but let's endeavor to be specific in our criticism of it... rather than simply saying "Oh that's unfair!" ... Fairness is relative. Justice shouldn't be.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
That might kind of work. Another method that's proven to work is called "Netflix", aka "Amazon Prime". You want them to spend a few million dollars making something cool for you to watch, you pony up ninety-nine cents. You get what you want, the costs are covered and everyone is happy.
Except for the little detail that the most popular stuff that gets torrented is point blank not available from those sources.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
ISOhunt had 5-6 million dollars - presumably from hosting ads along with links?
That makes the "we weren't hosting any infringing content ourselves" defense, which I've always been sympathetic toward, somewhat inconsequential.
The fact that the site (owners) profited to the tune of multiple millions of dollars by facilitating copyright infringement kind of rubs me the wrong way. Had they done it for not much more than hosting fees I'd be more aligned with them receiving a "shut down, now" penalty.
And before I'm called a corporate shill, I fight the mess that copyright laws have become by boycotting the big content producers. They haven't made one single cent from me in many years, nor have I pirated any of their content. I've learned that I just don't need what they're selling.
Unfortunately, the law says that every time you share an MP3, god kills $150,000 worth of kittens. Statutory damages don't allow for any discretion on the part of the judge. Thank Congress for that.
Not true. 17 USC 504(c):
Statutory Damages.— ... [T]he copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just...
(1)
(2) In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000. In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200....
Correct me if I'm wrong but settlements outside of court cannot be converted to wage garnishments, right?
Not true. But hopefully IsoHunt was a corporation, not an individual proprietorship or partnership. Part of the purpose of a corporation's "legal personhood" is that wrongdoing on the part of the corporation cannot be transferred to the people who worked there or owned it. Of course, a corporation won't stop individuals for being charged with crimes, but a lawsuit settlement that bankrupts a company should not then bankrupt the individuals behind that corporation assuming they set things up properly.
This corporate protection from individual liability works for the bad guys, it works for good guys, it works for everyone.
"95% of all Slashdot
I'd happily pay 99 cents for an unencumbered 720p or 1080p mkv file for a great many shows. Unfortunately (for them) I can't.
They may work in the US but try in my country and you don't get to even see that they exist.
Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
That just takes me to the home page. Perhaps because Netflix detects I'm in .nl, realizes that it's not part of their offer in .nl, and so just dumps me to the main page.
The other two work fine, but I think you took 'most popular' a bit too literal, and perhaps a bit too narrow.
Since Netflix doesn't seem to actually allow you to see their full library unless you log in (I can see a small selection - this alone is a good reason to give Netflix a thumbs down over torrents), perhaps we could give the 'Top 10 this week' from torrentfreak a try through http://www.flicksery.com/ ?
http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-131014/
1-10. no.
Or, if you want to stay on the legal avenue, the top 10 of 2012 according to imdb, rather than just the #1 slot?
http://www.imdb.com/year/2012/
1. Avengers - yes
2. Pitch Perfect - no
3. The Hunger Games - yes
4. The Dark Knight Rises - no
5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - no
6. Argo - no
7. Django Unchained - no
8. The Place Beyond the Pines - no
9. Spring Breakers - no
10. The Motel Life - no
2013, according to box office*, then?
( * because new releases are heavily skewed toward high scores on imdb, and via box office we get to the same #1 for 2013 so far, Iron Man 3 )
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?at=0&sort=boxoffice_gross_us&title_type=feature&year=2013,2013
1. Iron Man 3 - no? Weird - though after some googling, perhaps it's only available from Netflix in DVD form, rather than streaming - canistream.it seems to suggests so as well? Perhaps you could clarify that one.
2-10. - no
Don't get me wrong, Netflix is a wonderful service and people who just want to watch whatever movies or TV shows will find more material there than they can watch in a year. But it's not all going to be material they want to watch, the material they want to watch may not be on there, and overall it's just a poor comparison - gets even worse when you're in .nl ;)
a corporation won't stop individuals for being charged with crimes
Unless it's a really big corporation.