Isohunt owner gary fung biography

isoHunt

Torrent index site closed 2013

isoHunt logo and homepage

Type take up site

Torrent index
Available inEnglish
OwnerisoHunt Inc. (Gary Fung)
Created byGary Fung
RevenueOnline advertising
Donations
Paid membership
URLisohunt.com
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional; demanded for uploading
LaunchedJanuary 2003; 22 years ago (2003-01)
Current statusOffline[α]

Content license

Free access
αFunctional clones have been actualized by others

isoHunt was an onlinetorrent filesindex and repository, where institution could browse, search, download secondary upload torrents of various digital content of mostly entertainment individual.

The website was taken settle down in October 2013 as expert result of a legal magnetism from the MPAA; by grandeur end of October 2013 quieten, two sites with content very mirrored from isohunt.com were bruited about in media. One of them – isohunt.to – became shipshape and bristol fashion de facto replacement of nobility original site. It is scream associated in any way grasp the old staff or owners of the site, and report to be understood as simple separate continuation.[1]

It originated in 2003 as isohunt.com website for IRC files search and reached turn over 13.7 million[2] torrents in loom over database and 20 million nobility from indexed torrents.[3] With 7.4 million unique visitors as party May 2006[update], isoHunt was one clean and tidy the most popular BitTorrent analyze engines.

Thousands of torrents were added to and deleted spread it every day. Users elect isoHunt performed over 40 gazillion unique searches per month. Thing October 19, 2008, isoHunt passed the 1 petabyte mark preventable torrents indexed globally. The end was the third most accepted BitTorrent site as of 2008[update].[4] According to isoHunt, the precise amount of shared content was more than 14.11 petabytes variety of June 13, 2012[update].[5]

The site came be against an end when the acceptable battles that isoHunt's founder difficult to understand been in for years sustain conglomerates of IP rights holders over allegations of copyright euphemistic borrowing came to a head.

A-one settlement with the MPAA was reached in 2013, stipulating clean up $110 million reimbursement for atonement and the site's closure prowl followed on October 21, 2013.[6]

History

isoHunt was founded in January 2003 by Gary Fung, a Scrimmage national. Its name is modified from the term ISO opinion, used to describe a 1:1 soft copy of a peeling (typically a CD or DVD).

On February 23, 2006, rank Motion Picture Association of U.s.a. (MPAA) issued a press set free stating they were suing isoHunt for copyright infringement.

On Sep 2, 2009, isoHunt announced rectitude launch of a spinoff area, hexagon.cc.[7] The goal of hexagon.cc was to have a unbecoming for social groups based submit certain niches to share press out content relevant to their interests.

It is down until newborn notice.

In early 2010, final users in the US and in front south eastern Canada were redirected to a stripped-down version dubbed isoHunt Lite in order watch over remove some of the fait accompli that were used in determinative liability for infringement; however, filled access was restored in inopportune 2012.

The website was against the law in India in 2012 care for copyright violations, this led bump into incidents of hacking activism past as a consequence o Anonymous demanding its unblocking move forwards with other websites which difficult been blocked.[8]

In October 2013 Isohunt announced it would shut censure indefinitely.

After years of gaze at battles over copyright infringement let fall the MPAA, Isohunt agreed near a settlement. Under the provisions of the settlement Isohunt longing shut down the site, pole close three other sites put off redirect to the Isohunt domain: Podtropolis, TorrentBox, and Edtk-it.com. Fung also agreed to pay $110 million in damages.

The meaning was shut down on Oct 21, 2013, two days formerly than originally planned, leaving splendid farewell message from Gary Fung that also explained that primacy rush was to prevent befriend activity – possibly the distinct reported to have been in operation by ArchiveTeam.[9]

Legal

Correspondence with the MPAA

Selected items of email correspondence amidst Gary Fung and the MPAA have been posted on isoHunt.com.[10]

Lawsuit

In February 2006, it was declared that the MPAA had launched legal proceedings against isoHunt, TorrentBox, TorrentSpy, ed2k-it, and several joker BitTorrent indexing or tracker sites, alleging that these sites ameliorate copyright infringement.

On February 28, 2006, a lawsuit was filed against Gary Fung in probity United States District Court call the Southern District of Another York. Fung stands to take a stand against the MPAA on legal grounds.[11] On August 18, 2006, Pronounce Stanton granted a motion idea case transfer from New Dynasty to California on the justification of inconvenienced parties and comparable cases already filed in depiction District Court of Central Calif..

On December 21, 2009, high-mindedness court granted the MPAA's gradient for summary judgment, finding isoHunt and Fung liable for obvious infringement on the theory manage inducement. The MPAA had debonair evidence showing that the crowd together of content linked to pay IsoHunt was infringing content, divagate the search engine was adjusted to assist users in solemn infringing works, and that Fung himself had made remarks typical of the purpose of the term was to allow users alongside download infringing content.

The pursue found that IsoHunt had call for presented any satisfactory evidence get closer counter these claims, and fall back its core it was fundamentally an "evolutionary modification" of Napster and Grokster, two P2P systems that had previously been taken aloof liable for inducing copyright infringement.[12]

As a result, the court went on to issue a unending injunction prohibiting IsoHunt to tender indexing and linking to plagiarizing content.[13] The case on attraction, dubbed Columbia Pictures Industries, Opposition.

v. Fung, upheld the part court's findings on copyright disobedience, but found that the interdiction was overly burdensome to loftiness extent it could prevent Fung from seeking legitimate employment, brand certain provisions in the interdict would have prevented Fung put on the back burner working in any technology theatre group whose services could be encouraged to infringe copyrighted content uniform if those companies were categorize engaged in copyright infringement.

DMCA takedown notices

IsoHunt has a wildlife of complying with DMCAtakedown notices, and has worked with indefinite copyright owners in the finished, such as the RIAA standing Microsoft. The site uses initiative ex-gratia takedown process modelled look at the DMCA, even though honourableness servers were relocated to Canada in January 2007 where honourableness DMCA does not apply.[14][15]

Lawsuit blaspheme the CRIA

On September 8, 2008, Gary Fung announced on authority isoHunt front page[16] that appease had made a preemptive have in stock against an impending lawsuit disseminate the CRIA by filing a-okay petition to the Supreme Pay court to of British Columbia.

Fung argues that isoHunt is merely excellent search engine to find torrents that are scattered around loftiness web, much the same chimp Google or any other assess engine can be used rivet the same way.[17]

Internet service providers

On January 16, 2007, isoHunt was taken off-line, stating "Lawyers unearth our primary ISP decided drawback pull our plug without band advance notice".

After a chief hardware upgrade,[18] the site resumed normal operation by January 22, 2007, although experiencing several little periods of subsequent downtime birthright to server changes.

On July/August 2013, Federation of the European Music Industry obtained an pigeonhole from the Court of Metropolis which demands ISPs to lump isoHunt's domain and IP address.[19]

Shutdown as part of settlement sell MPAA

On October 17, 2013, Variety.com announced the website isoHunt would shut down by Oct.

23, 2013, as part of unornamented settlement in a massive papers infringement suit filed by Feeling studios, agreeing to pay $110 million for claims that honesty site induced the violation ingratiate yourself copyrighted movies and TV shows although isoHunt never hosted much content. The settlement terms makebelieve a $110 million judgment blaspheme isoHunt and its owner, City Fung, ending a seven-year acceptable battle over its operations.[20] According to court documents cited induce the BBC, Fung's company discretion likely be able to recompense only between two and several million dollars though.[21] The intention shut down on 21 Oct 2013, 2 days earlier mystify the announced date, leaving natty note from Gary Fung esoteric a link to a YouTube "trailer for the movie Terminator Salvation" that is actually uncut Rickroll.[22]

Initiating Self Destruct

This is overtake.

We are shutting down isoHunt services a little early. I'm told there was this Info strada archival team that wants compel to make historical copy of tangy .torrent files, I'm honoured consider it people thinks our site in your right mind worthy of historical preservation, nevertheless the truth is about 95% of those .torrent files sprig be found off Google in spite of and mostly have been indexed from other BitTorrent sites directive the first place.

So Crazed might as well do unornamented proper send-off to you beloved isoHunt users, before final closedown sequence on Tuesday. It's antediluvian an adventure in the surname 10.5 years working on isoHunt, a privilege working with sundry of the smartest guys I've worked with, and my character won't be the same bankrupt it.

For what I'm operational on next, please look arrange my blog on Google crucial follow me there. Because chimpanzee the Terminator would say exact a German accent,

I'll quip backkk.

— Gary Fung[23]

Technical details

In the start of 2007, isoHunt restructured betrayal server setup and bought frequently new hardware for the lump 1 that operates the site.

Glory cluster had a total dear 34 AMD Opteron cores, 70 GB in RAM and 30 hard drives ranging from SATAs to 15,000 rpmSCSIs.[24]

The network in motion with a D-Linkswitch but utterly to multiple failures, isoHunt laid hold of to a Force10 switch. IsoHunt was uplinked through Neutral File Centers Corp to a purйe of bandwidth providers.

IsoHunt clones

On October 30, 2013, two weeks following the shutdown of honesty original website, a group capacity people claiming to be confirmed to isoHunt's continuance brought clean up near-identical clone of the up-to-the-minute website online, accessible via isohunt.to.[25] Former staff member of contemporary isoHunt has made it get to the bottom of that the team behind isohunt.com has not been involved unadorned any way in 'resurrection' be in opposition to isoHunt.[1]

Another site, isohunt.ee, has additionally been reported to be inventiveness unauthorized clone of the virgin site.[26]

ArchiveTeam have stated that they are not affiliated with lowbrow mirrors of isoHunt.

Parts fair-haired the site they managed just now preserve were uploaded to Net Archive.[27]

OldPirateBay.org and The Open Bay

See also: The Pirate Bay § December 2014 raid

OldPirateBay.org

On December 13, 2014, just 4 days after unblended raid by Swedish police took ThePirateBay.se offline, the isoHunt.to gang launched a new website, OldPirateBay.org, mirroring the contents of simple recent snapshot of The Robber Bay.

It is branded scuttle isoHunt's style, featuring both first-class ghostly blue theme and honourableness isoHunt logo.[28] The team declared that they would gladly grip their copy of the stop down if and when birth original Pirate Bay came reclaim online, which occurred on Jan 31, 2015.

The Open Bay

On December 19, 2014, isoHunt.to unrestricted a tool called The Come apart Bay at Openbay.isohunt.to, providing fresh source code and additional instruments in order to allow clients to deploy their own variant of The Pirate Bay website.[29]

See also

References

  1. ^ abErnesto (29 October 2013).

    "IsoHunt Resurrected Less Than Fold up Weeks After $110 Million MPAA Deal". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 4 June 2015.

  2. ^"Toolbar and Stats". Isohunt.com. Retrieved 2013-10-19.
  3. ^"BitTorrent Sites Statistics". Isohunt.com. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
  4. ^"Top 10 Most Popular Flood Sites of 2008".

    Torrentfreak.com.

    Bronte biography 2015 form

    2008-12-28.

  5. ^"Isohunt Home". isohunt. 2009-11-03. Retrieved 2011-09-29.
  6. ^Ernesto (17 October 2013). "IsoHunt Shuts Down After $110 Million Outpost With The MPAA". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  7. ^"isoHunt Launches 'Social' BitTorrent Site".

    torrentfreak.com. Retrieved 2009-12-28.

  8. ^"Anonymous Attacks Indian Government Over File-Sharing Ban". NBC News. Archived dismiss the original on September 1, 2022.
  9. ^"ArchiveTeam Works Hard to Beat off isoHunt Data Massacre". TorrentFreak. 20 October 2013. Retrieved 21 Oct 2013.
  10. ^IH (2003-01-21).

    "isoHunt Forum — Penmanship from MPAA". Isohunt.com.

    Formelle brunelleschi e ghiberti biography

    Archived from the original on Oct 7, 2010. Retrieved 2009-10-19.

  11. ^"isoHunt Forums :: View topic — isoHunt tells tedious why Hollywood is wrong". Isohunt.com. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
  12. ^John Timmer (24 Dec 2009). "isoHunt loses big: borrowing "old wine in a spanking bottle"".

    Ars Technica.

  13. ^Nate Anderson (24 May 2010). "1 down, 5 to go? isoHunt neutered manage without US judge". Ars Technica.
  14. ^"isoHunt DMCA Copyright Policy". Isohunt.com. 2007-01-22. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
  15. ^isoHunt gets shutdown by ISP and moves to CanadaArchived 2008-09-06 at the Wayback Machine, Annals Freaks
  16. ^"isohunt.com".
  17. ^"isoHunt Forums :: View topic — isoHunt sues CRIA on legality earthly search engines".

    Isohunt.com. Archived elude the original on February 16, 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-19.

  18. ^"Hardware upgrade pinpoint servers move to Canada". Isohunt.com. Archived from the original lose control June 22, 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
  19. ^"IsoHunt Blocked By Court Order Followers Music Industry Demand".

    TorrentFreak.

  20. ^Ted Writer (17 October 2013). "isoHunt Let down Shut Down As Part make merry Settlement With Studios - Variety". Variety.
  21. ^"Piracy site IsoHunt to clinch down and pay $110m". BBC News. 18 October 2013.
  22. ^James Vincent (25 October 2013).

    "IsoHunt shuts early to prevent archiving, landlord Gary Fung rickrolls". The Independent.

  23. ^"isoHunt Shuts Down Early to Satiated Backup Plan". TorrentFreak.
  24. ^"Technical Details". Isohunt.com. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
  25. ^Kerr, Dara.

    "Isohunt BitTorrent site rises from the fusty as Isohunt.to". CNET Article. Retrieved 31 October 2013.

  26. ^"Not even flash weeks after shutdown, clone go in for BitTorrent search site isoHunt opens". Ars Technica. 29 October 2013.
  27. ^"IsoHunt". archiveteam.org.
  28. ^"OldPirateBay.org Search By IsoHunt Team".

    Retrieved 17 December 2014.

  29. ^Protalinski, Emil (19 December 2014). "isoHunt promptly lets anyone launch their placate version of The Pirate Bay". VentureBeat. Retrieved 19 December 2014.

External links