isoHunt tells court why Hollywood is wrong

Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 8:29 am

heacock wrote:

If Fords don't promote speeding why do speedometers display speeds well above what any of the posted speed limits in the world are? IMO it is a great analogy.

Pharmaceutical companies sell you enough pills to kill yourself too, it doesn't mean you have to take them all. Wink

Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 12:53 pm

After a lot of consideration, I do tend to side with the argument that Isohunt only acts as a library and can not be held liable for pirating ON THAT PARTICULAR MATTER. The fact that Isohunt links to torrents of pirated material is akin to Google linking to files that are pirated material. (A simple search will reveal that Google links to innumerable copyrighted documents.)

That said, the statement that Isohunt "[does] not want it to be used for copyright infringement against the wishes of copyright holders" is laughable. One merely needs to peruse the Isohunt hosted forums to destroy that position. The argument that forums are open to the public does not hold legal weight as moderation does take place, which means the owner of the board takes an ACTIVE role on the board and thus makes himself responsible for the content. Same reason why the driver of the getaway vehicle is held liable for any murder that takes place inside the bank.

If Isohunt took proactive measures to censor messages related to piracy actions ("Can someone upload [i]Enchanted[/i]"), then Isohunt may have a better argument with respect to not being involved in theft, but as it stands now even a first year law student should be bringing up the forums as evidence of complacency. I'm surprised that hasn't entered into it yet. (I haven't really followed the case.)

On another note, just out of curiosity, how much has this lawsuit cost Isohunt so far in legal fees?

Lighthope

Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 3:38 pm

Hi,
First of all, forgive my bad English.
I had a look through the documents you attached to your post and have a little comment to make. I believe your supplemental briefing is well written and focuses on the fundamental issue that the court underlined: the distinction between the service you provide and the actual copying of copyrighted work.
Anyway, I would suggest you to look at the whole matter from another perspective. What the plaintiff is trying to demonstrate, after all, is not that you committ copyright infringements or similar things. In my view, the plaintiff is trying to portray your service as a necessary link in the chain of events that lead to copyright infringements by the actual users.
You do have a sound ground on which to defend your website and the plaintiff seems aware of this, at least from what I read. But the game seems more subtle to me and the real meaning of the plaintiff's action reminds me more of a trap. It's clear that you are just an indexing service, but your position has a few weak points that the plaintiff can exploit if the idea of a sequence of actions reaches the stage. You should (obviously just my view) brake this and be careful enough not to show it. Be careful, it sounds like there's something more going on than what you see here.
Best regards.

Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:35 am

lol danggg if i was the owner of the beautifull and lovely iso hunt i would sue them for being noob j/k we get illegal stuff because ITS GOING TO HAPPEN REGUARDLESS they nee dto leave it be so a company loses a little money BIG DEAL people will still buy their products and movies.. theres 800 + million people in america plus the world! they have nothing to worry about! they are just being grreedyyyy lol.. This has been a reply from THE PLANET EARTH lol if yall guys need pc help visit my youtube btw San Antonio texas rules! I love iso hunt thank you so much for the illegal file sharing its teh awesomness we wouldnt B EILLEGALL FILE SHARING if they would lower the gas prices haha

Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:09 pm

"If Isohunt took proactive measures to censor messages related to piracy actions ("Can someone upload Enchanted "), then Isohunt may have a better argument with respect to not being involved in theft, but as it stands now even a first year law student should be bringing up the forums as evidence of complacency. I'm surprised that hasn't entered into it yet. (I haven't really followed the case.) "

you could try and censor the freedom of speech on the forums..thats a walk into the dark ages? or delte every post? What if the people posting are hoaxers? it's kinda easy to sit in an armchair saying how these things should go down. Yeah thats a great idea lets start censoring the forums, the argument being better the devil you know for the mpaa and other organisations. I have not seen a mod here promoting copyright theft since i have been around. niether on the other torrent sites..I can tell you what I HAVE seen. I have seen them try and promote LEGAL download, thats been happening alot recently if you look back through the forums. Every big company that even hints at a legal download gets the full support of the mods here who actually push us to use the legal sevice to prove this is a matter of choice..so if you wanna rip inot the forums..I would say the mods are in a very good position I have only seen them promote legal downloads.

not only that the forums might from time to time provide ameans to point to the real bad guys..the people who like to mess with young kids. the more info thats out there the more chance people like that might create one too many profiles Wink

then we "someone" could get those bastards...but not if we censor it all...

you are in effect asking isohunt to police the internet then? every tracker, does that include other torrent sites too? as some toreents originate from there? I argue that if you make the owner of isohunt reponsible for every torrent it would have enough down time to close it. And that counts for google too..make no mistake. If google was asked to police the world as you suggest..you would not have been able to navigate here today..because they would still be working on the solution.

so you can call it laughable..I could actually get your angle. BUT make no mistake dont try and take responsibility away from yourself, and from other uploaders and downloaders. Isohunt offers reference to torrents. it's down to each person WHAT they look for. what they upload, what they download. The responsibiity lies with the users and creators of torrents and the bt torrent engine. I understand isohunt does not make or create the torrents? definatley dont upload the files? so they provide links to files other people have created. hmm

If peeps dont take this a little more seriously and look passed the chance for an arguement they will realise..this goes WAYYY beyond downloading material..this enters into what you will/wont be ABLE to see and do on the net. all the freedoms you take for granted.

Just a few years ago I used to be able to get guitar chords for my favourite songs on the net, so I could play them at home by myslef and sometimes with a friend. That "luxoury" is vitrually over for me as many of those sites have been told they are breaking the law. Just for providing people with the means to learn a f**kin song.

Whats happening recently is big and it seems without end, but there will be an end of sorts, and rather than being snied and cockey. maybe we all should think about the consequences to such freedoms being taken away..whether you agree with bit torrent p2p or any downloading..think, you really want things like "pay per view" on TOP of your internet bill?

You really want to not be able to log into the lost website JUST because you live in the uk?

how many time shave you (everyone) broke the law this year? now think again....how many times?
Do we really want our choices made for us like children. Maybe I am on another planet, but then again maybe taking the head of the guy that runs isohunt is actually a weak cheap move because they CANT..thats NOT ABLE to take the millions to court..so they take a scapegoat instead..still if the worst happend it would only compound a legacy a le morpheus, napster, suprnova. They will never stop us thinking freely as long as we dont forget how..times like this we need our eyes wide open.

oh and umm i was just wondering? how would a first year law student cope with the fact that it is legal to sell cannabis seeds in britain but it is illegal to grow them? It is legal to by a hash pipe but illegal to use it. It is legal to buy a "scanner" but it is illegal to use most of the frequencies on it?

it's legal to walk in someones house if the door is open but lol it is illegal to kick it in..so invited or not just look for the open door LOL. point is the choice has been left to the consumer in the examples i have given( and there are so many more) so whats so different here..oh yeah the MPAA whining thats what.
thats all

Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:36 pm

jugsbunny wrote:

"If Isohunt took proactive measures to censor messages related to piracy actions ("Can someone upload Enchanted "), then Isohunt may have a better argument with respect to not being involved in theft, but as it stands now even a first year law student should be bringing up the forums as evidence of complacency. I'm surprised that hasn't entered into it yet. (I haven't really followed the case.) "

It probably has been used as evidence in one form or another. Whatever the users on the forum choose to discuss is irrelevant and beyond the general forum moderation in light if the site's rules, we do not censor what people choose to discuss. Just becuase you choose not to censor what users say does not mean you either agree with them or that you condone their actions, only that you allow them their right to free speech.

This is a big forum, and far more is dicussed here than where someone can find the latest Harry Potter trash. In fact, I would go as far as saying that there is far more general discussion as well as discussions of specific topics that have nothing to do with either filesharing or torrents than there is about them.

Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 4:30 am

I enjoyed reading this, especially "Indeed, the Internet and search engines like isohunt.com
would then only be as good as the most restrictive jurisdiction and that would also
impact Free Speech and related Constitutional Protections in the United States and
bring automated search engines and the Internet to a grinding halt."
I wish you all the best in your case, I love torrents and can't imagine getting the things I get any other way. Very Happy

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 6:09 pm

In all seriousness, screw Hollywood. Actors make ALOT of money in films and they are gonna complain that we are taking away from their profit. You acted in a movie for an hour and you get mega millions. Who cares. Actors have enough money to do WHATEVER they want and by WHATEVER I mean W H A T E V E R they want. All we are doing is watching the movie they stared in or jammin out to the music that was produced. Keep ISOhunt alive. Don't let the man get u down. I wish you the best of luck and hopefully Hollywood dosent get another quality BT site.

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 10:50 pm

there again...same as trying to tax the internet ..its free SPACE.or so i thought ..maybe one day we'll win this...

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 11:07 pm

Good late night read. I hope the ruling goes in your favor, it is very clear to ME in the presentation of this case that your site is not directly responsible for copyright infringement and that you are supplying a legitimate data service.

The way it reads, I as a judge, would wonder why the MPAA is wasting time trying to close your site down and not looking for ways to collect data from actual trackers to proceed against actual seeders of copyrighted material. Not that any of us want to see that Rolling Eyes

but it is obviously a waste of thier time to seek a ruling against you. Clearly the potentially copyrighted data doesn't pass through the trackers either, but the potential for distrobution of copyrighted material begins with those indexes, not with your providing of torrent files that link to them. Trackers may be run on a system as automated as yours, but it's not your system that deserves scrutiny here. In addition, because the data isn't directly passing through said trackers, and because most trackers don't directly support the distrobution of copyrighted material - they shouldn't be held accountable if copyright infringement becomes an issue. That fact that they hold the key to locating those directly responsible is what should actually be up for litigation, certainly not the content of your website.

At least you are holding your ground. Bittorrent would die if a ruling was allowed on your case, and that would be directly effecting all the rulings cited by you and your attorneys regarding free speech on the internet. Hopefully the judge will see it this way, and ask that the MPAA find a more compelling argument against internet piracy.

Good luck.

Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 5:58 pm

[quote="IH"]I haven't written about our court case with the MPAA in a while.

hi all; first time/long time. this is going to be a long reply, partly because i believe the situation hasn't really been analyzed nor explained coherently from a COMPREHENSIVE, bird's eye view. while individual points of this landscape make their points, validly or invalidly as the case may be, without a grounding into the history of how we arrived at this point, i think that lack, however it's measured, leaves proportional room for emotionalism and power plays by the wealthy.

and that, in gambling terms, is not a fair bet. so...

this is NOT a comprehensive take - i have one, but it'd be snorefest 2008. i'm enough of a bore as it is. what i will do is explore facets of this landscape as of yet clearly defined in forums like these, let alone by mass media mega-corps in their rags and tags.

the first fundamental that MUST be understood is the rule of conglomeration, and that is: if "they" are conglomerated and "you" are not, then that's an unfair landscape any way you slice it - but particularly from a consumer standpoint. and it's not just price, it's also diversity. because as mass media - regardless of form (movies, music, publishing...) has conglomerated down to SEVEN companies (from about 50 something as little as 3 or 4 decades ago), the stakes have risen like never before. with wall street and shareholder value top priorities and bottom lines to answer to, the mega-corps constrain risk by going with proven talent ad nauseum.

with that, we can move now to understanding the evolution of recorded music against the mega-corporate business model, what i'll call the stone age model. there's a reason that i'm now focusing on music, because music, more than any other art form, is always on the leading edge, artistically as well as entrepreneurially. therefore, the lessons that shake out in music should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be studied very closely by ALL artists and consumers.

i'll try to keep this simple, but it basically breaks down to the stone age model of recorded music as profit center - controlled through distribution - versus the new media model of recorded music as a marketing cost .

what this means is that the stone age dinosaurs haven't evolved their business model - actually their thinking - because they lack entrepreneurial agility. as we all know with the net - whether napster or p2p - that model's demise was set. but what's not understood and said is that the mega corps utter failure to understand new media. two examples bear this out.

the first is courtesy of mr. apple himself. simply, when jobs recruited sculley to run apple, i raised an eyebrow if not two. sculley - a pepsi ho with no new media experience - runs apple into the ground.

the second is yahoo's hiring of terry semel, an "assohole/slime-barfer" (aol/time-warner) stone age dinosaur of ever there was one, to run yahoo. he also jacks up yahoo - yahoo, who was poised to be THE net company, but with semel's hiring, google of course does what it does best - innovates and out-entrepreneurs, and of course left yahoo behind.

with that, it's easy to see why dinosaurs desperately want to hold on to the stone age model of recorded music as profit center. as a dinosaur, they literally do not get it - it's not in their consciousness, so they fight the only fight they know how.

but musicians - with and without mega-corp deals - know that their livelihood isn't derived from recorded music, it's from gigs. thus, it's a no-brainer for musicians to walk away from the mega-corps and go entrepreneurial, direct to consumer. while prince, public enemy and others are notable examples, and even better one is that of ani difranco. if you don't know, axe sumbuddy. her story is inspiring. For artists who get it, they understand that recorded music is not so much a profit center as a a marketing cost in the form of support of their gigs and ancillary collateral.

the ramifications of course are deep. i'm from LA and grew up with tower records, as LA/Hollywood an icon as there was . i've seen many a celeb in there. well, it's gone.

so the mega-corps, being conservative, instead of evolving, fight and hold on. the root of "conservative" being "conserve," maintain, keep the status quo.

film's different in that there's no direct parallel to gigs outside of theatrical releases. but as we've seen with the stone-age business model, everything there is predicated upon their economic imperatives and hedged with conservative values - ie: go with what you know. it's further compounded by the DVD which has now surpassed theatrical as the big dog.

nothing new, right?

there's actually one more dimension i haven't mentioned: scale. here's an excerpt from an article of mine:

With a handful of mega-corporations controlling the majority of all mass media, movie production has come to be controlled by the almighty economic imperative of fast monetary returns. Wall Street and shareholder value are now top priorities and bottom lines in any film considered for production. Outside of the rate of inflation, this helps explain why the cost of a typical Hollywood production continues to spiral upward: In order to maximize profitability, “stars,” first and foremost, are sought to be attached to a project. But the cost of a zero point production truly goes astronomical once the marketing kicks in, often the greatest portion of a zero point production’s budget. As star salaries have climbed, complete with profit participation, and marketing costs spiral ever higher, so have the budgets of Hollywood films. Add to this the spiraling costs of production – crews, equipment, licensing and permit fees… - and you have an economy that few on the outside of Hollywood can fathom, let alone matriculate into and find gainful employment in. And so, we arrive at yet another barrier to entry for Hollywood outsiders: The over-bloated zero point of production economy.

in other words, mega-corp-stone-age studios, in placing large bets in the form of their inflated budgets, (to be accurate, it's their business model) can't possibly scale down and compete on the level of direct-to-consumer. they have to go mass and therefore lowest-common-denominators. which again explains the lack of entrepreneurial ability to change with the times and evolve to new media.

ok, if you're sick enough to put up with all of this, the logical question is: "what does this have to do with the mpaa's case?"

everything. today and the future.

everything above - and then some - points to the principle in action at the top of my rant: conglomeration. the mpaa - as part and parcel of the mega-corp controlled studio system - is merely doing what conservatives do; struggle to maintain status quo.

but simple dialectics and the cogent example of the music industry show how the studio system must evolve or fall. we know one thing for sure in the form of another fundamental: technology - represented by moore's law - will not stop evolving. as it does, even more facile means will evolve for users to share information.

predicated upon these principles, the future for the studio system is a challenge; evolve or, like the mega-corp controlled music industry, face extinction.

in other words, the "rights fight" is merely an expression on one side of a many-faceted struggle; that between the old and new.

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 6:18 am

Note that the majority of the people have not even started using encrypted filesharing like Tor or encrypted offshore VPN tunnels. So even if judges rule everything in favor of copyright holders for a long time to come, and can somehow force ISP's to take on a supervising role, then they still have to ban data encryption as well, or only allow it to certain certified servers - a massive undertaking. I don't see this happening in Europe; Germany for example has already ruled in favor of the exact opposite regarding privacy and encryption. Stopping illegal filesharing is currently not technically viable, that is why I think cases like these are a waste of time for the judicial system. They could punish people caught in the act, but it makes no sense to punish a content neutral search engine in between.

Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 8:44 am

these things that happen to usa are sometimes so strange

Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 1:22 am

I see this is going to be a tricky court case, but if hollywood wants isohunt and other sites to stop distrubuting their films maybe they should look inside hollywood to find which people are working on publishing the movie to dvd, i think they would find they would be caught in their own web really.

oh and another thing, you might win actully with the information i have. I live in the UK 2 miles from Pinewood studios which are major films but they want to expand being the biggest studios in the world over taking hollywood.

If it goes through then the court can't really say much. Very Happy

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 11:19 pm

I am also glad to see you standing up for us. I hope you feel good about what you are accomplishing. Thanks.