The Motion Picture Association of America has finally won the war it started with IsoHunt, the third largest search engine for BitTorrent files.
Back in February 2006, the MPAA stated they would sue IsoHunt for copyright infringement, since hundreds of thousands of films have been illegally pirated using their files. The founder of IsoHunt, Gary Fung of Canada, has reached a settlement to close down the site by October 23 and pay the MPAA $110 million. The U.S. gave an injunction against IsoHunt in 2009, but Fung kept the site's servers running in Canada. Fung tried at last ditch defense of IsoHunt in March, but the U.S. Supreme Court used the same argument it did against Grokster, another peer-to-peer torrenting engine, which eventually led to its shutdown in 2005. "It's sad to see my baby go. But I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful," Fung said on his blog. "10.5 years of isoHunt has been a long journey by any business definition, and forever in Internet startup time."
Chris Dodd, the MPAA's chariman, said the settlement "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 actions."
The MPAA and IsoHunt came to the $110M agreement in October 16, which included that IsoHunt wouldn't appeal the decision. Regardless, IsoHunt got its YOLO on and filed an appeal with the Supreme Court anyway, and it's already in process.
The entire situation is building up momentum for other potential closures of torrenting sites, which surely the MPAA and the government already has their eyes on.
[via The Guardian]
