Isohunt, the decade-old
and immensely popular BitTorrent search engine, will shut down within
the week as part of an agreement with the MPAA. In a ruling posted by Wired, site founder Gary Fung
and several film companies set the terms of a long-running copyright infringement suit, which Fung essentially lost in March.
As part of the deal, Fung has seven days to permanently shut down
Isohunt and three other domains: Podtropolis, TorrentBox, and
Edtk-it.com, all of which redirect to Isohunt. He's also agreed to pay
the plaintiffs $110 million in damages.
Isohunt has been tangling with
the film industry since 2006, after the MPAA alleged it was encouraging
copyright infringement on a massive scale. While Isohunt served links to
torrents of songs, software, and films, Fung argued that he was
protected by the DMCA's safe harbor policy, which limits internet
services' liability for what passes through their networks. The court,
however, didn't agree. It determined that Fung had been well aware of
piracy on his network and done nothing to prevent it, actively asking
for people to upload torrents of specific films and helping people find
copyrighted content.
MPAA head Chris Dodd said the
decision "sends a strong message that those who build businesses around
encouraging, enabling, and helping others to commit copyright
infringement are themselves infringers, and will be held accountable for
their illegal actions." Fung, meanwhile, posted a farewell message
on his website. "It's sad to see my baby go," he wrote. "But I have
fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained
faithful. 10.5 years of Isohunt has been a long journey by any business
definition, and forever in internet startup time."
