Copyright infringement? Surprises, surprises.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 6:41 am

This letter has been emailed to isoHunt.com's ISP:

Quote:

VIA EMAIL:

Demand for Immediate Take-Down: Notice of Infringing Activity

29 April 2004

Dear Sir or Madam,

Microsoft has received information that the domain listed above, which appears to be on servers under your control, is offering unlicensed copies of, or is engaged in other unauthorized activities relating to copyrighted computer programs published by Microsoft.

1. Identification of copyrighted works:

Computer program(s):
Xbox: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow
Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect
Visual Studio .NET Professional
Visual C++ 6.0 Standard
Visual SourceSafe
Xbox: The Suffering
Windows Longhorn 4051
Office 11
Office Professional Edition 2003
Xbox: Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
Xbox: Spy Hunter 2

Copyright owner(s):
Microsoft Corporation

2. Infringing material or activity found at the following location(s):
http://isohunt.com/release.php,
http://isohunt.com/release.php?ihq=&poster=&cat=-1&ihp=5,
http://isohunt.com/release.php?ihq=&poster=&cat=-1&ihp=5&id=2870,
http://isohunt.com/btDetails.php?ihq=Splinter+Cell+Game+Ubisoft+Tactical&id=2186871

The above computer program(s) is being made available for copying, through downloading, at the above location without authorization of the copyright owner.

3. Statement of authority:

I hereby certify under penalty of perjury that the information in this notice is accurate and that I am authorized to act on behalf of Microsoft, the owner of the copyright(s) in the work(s) identified above. I have a good faith belief that none of the materials or activities listed above have been authorized by Microsoft, its agents, or the law.

We hereby give notice of these activities to you and request that you take expeditious action to remove or disable access to the material described above, and thereby prevent the illegal reproduction and distribution of this software via your company's network.

We appreciate your cooperation in this matter. Please advise us regarding what actions you take.

Yours sincerely,

James Young
Internet Investigator

for Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
United States of America

We are working this out with our ISP, while the search and releases interface is partially offline for the time being. Since we never offered any "copyright infringing" data available for download through isohunt.com and its hosting servers, hopefully our ISP will investigate this further. Stay tuned for latest development.

UPDATE 1: IRC search engine back in operation, as only links to channels are provided, not any metadata.

UPDATE 2: Those who caught the email address in MS's letter, please DO NOT spam it. You'll only make it worse. Let us do the emailing, thank you. We don't want to make anyone angry.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 8:46 am

Quote:

The above computer program(s) is being made available for copying, through downloading, at the above location without authorization of the copyright owner.

3. Statement of authority:

I hereby certify under penalty of perjury that the information in this notice is accurate and that I am authorized to act on behalf of Microsoft, the owner of the copyright(s) in the work(s) identified above. I have a good faith belief that none of the materials or activities listed above have been authorized by Microsoft, its agents, or the law.

Have you not got a counter claim for deflamation or something similar, the statement, that software is being made avaliable for download at this location, is totally untrue, I do not believe they do not know what a search engine does which basicaly is what ISO hunt is.
Are they going to send similar letters aimed at Google etc. Laughing

Call their bluff put in acounter claim. Twisted Evil

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 2:52 pm

Perhaps they should sue themselves for allowing Internet Explorer to download illegal software.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 3:44 pm

M$ always have to ruin everybody's fun
flatout basics, isohunt is not sharing anything, its just an adobe of a p2p consolidated search engine

helping people look for software is one thing, the sites actually providing the torrents and the filesharers that are acutally seeding or uploading are the real problem, not isohunt

as stated before, they migth as well take legal action against google or their own search engine in msn

so for M$, they can just kneel down and kiss our asses

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:17 pm

Hmm...

Not sure exactly what to make of this. I can see that Microsoft has a legal claim to this matter as it is their software that's appearing on the search enging... but on the other hand I see that this sound similar to the P2P networking issue where clients acted only as search engines. (Ref: RIAA vs. Kazaa)

Suggestion is to inform Microsoft that this is only a search engine and thus is not responsible for the content therein. Content is a matter of those who choose to make it available to the search engine; since it is not technically on the search engine's servers, the search engine site (that being ISOHUNT) has no right/responsibility to regulate it. It is beyond ISOHUNT's control.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 6:00 pm

While I agree that the site is a search engine that documents trackers and seeded files, I think M$ could make the point that the search engine is not impartial. Perhaps I do not understand how the site works, or search engines in general, but doesn't someone have to input the basic information about a tracker? What about IRC?
M$ could therefore claim that the search is not impartial and that the intent is to document the whereabouts of illegally copied files. Moreover, M$ could claim that by modifying torrent files to use isohunt trackers (if there are any... anyone?) the site is complicit in the distribution of copyrighted material.

However, I could be totally wrong on both points since I'm relatively n00b, esp. to isohunt.

My 2 cents.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 6:38 pm

The search engines here are as impartial as the automated indexing algorithms. Filtering is possible, and that is what isohunt.com will do if MS base their infringement claim on the DMCA.

But our ISP seems to want to suspend the server hosting the isohunt.com domain, which I'm not sure is exactly what MS's letter asked for. As possible filter of MS material on the search engine will take time, the search engines will continue be partially offline until both our ISP and MS agree that filtering is acceptable. Thanks for your patience and support.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 6:53 pm

All of these copyright paranoid companies make more and more profit every year and then waste millions of it on lawsuites. Obviously while pirating is not ethically right it has no effect on their profits. They have no problem with monopolising the planet purely for profit. Why don't they do something useful with their time and money like helping majority world countries like Somalia etc etc, to improve the life of humanity globally should be thier goal, look at the big picture! Its more a case of humanity verses the Corporate Cartels, Long live the revolution!! I'm genuinely scared of the Orwellian future I see coming even though we've gone past 1984. Get a Life and a conscience Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA, Monsanto and others! Let them eat money when the last tree has been chopped down.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 9:17 pm

[quote="linuxaddict"]All of these copyright paranoid companies make more and more profit every year and then waste millions of it on lawsuites. Obviously while pirating is not ethically right it has no effect on their profits. They have no problem with monopolising the planet purely for profit. Why don't they do something useful with their time and money like helping majority world countries like Somalia etc etc, to improve the life of humanity globally should be thier goal, look at the big picture! Its more a case of humanity verses the Corporate Cartels, Long live the revolution!! I'm genuinely scared of the Orwellian future I see coming even though we've gone past 1984. Get a Life and a conscience Microsoft, RIAA, , Monsanto and others! Let them eat money when the last tree has been chopped down.[/quote]

Worse part is you get Windows XP which has a fairly tight serial checking application they say it's to protect you from people who steal software and allow prices of software to come back down NO ! It's to protect their interests. What a load of crap the prices keep going up and we keep paying to beta test their "Released crap". Maybe if prices fell and software's quality went back up we'd be better off. I remember the old days when Patches for programs were unheard of. Now it's the first thing I check when I "Buy" a new game.
Regards,
Kev

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 10:23 pm

Well, first off this is what google had done when the Kazzaa ppl complained about kazaa-lite [url="http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:14ml8pMkU9gJ:www.insidedelirium.com/archive/000233.html+google+kazzaa&hl=en ] From google cache [url]. Basically, this is the same situation. Legally all you have to do is code against a regex to match any url they listed and show the complaint to the offending site. In this case you could then actually show the torrent?

But, really what needs to be done is to host the server in some third world country lists its owners as fake ppl outside us and most intl law and this thing could go on breaking the law indeffinatly. IE if the illegal pages where is Asia the warez capitol of the world, who is going to do what to who. The chinese government would say HA HA American company. Basically the key to winning the online battle is allying with the parts of the world who refuse to be regulated from entities within the US (RIAA, M$, and RIAJ?), then we could all laugh while we have encrypted torrents comming in from china (THe joke is 99% of the traffic would be in the US).
But theat is the perment fix it will be comming we have no choice and they really cant stop us, unless they turn into terrorist nazis, over money no-less and even still i wont buy their shit .

Yep I worte this: Kerpal[/url]

Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 3:24 am

There is only one possibles answer:
Move everyday computer activities on Open software.
In an Open Software comunities there is no possibility to ambiguos interpretation of Internet activities. People at M$ knows very well the difference between search engines and downlaod sites: they simply don't take care of that!
They only want to have the possibility to stop internet acticiviets that aren't related with their bussiness (SCO docet!).
Nobody can investigate you for copyright infringement if the software you use is copylefted!

:

Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 4:23 am

On the lighter side:

What did Bill Gates wife say to him, on their wedding night ????

No wonder you call it Microsoft. Laughing

Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 4:48 am

Quote:

Computer program(s):
Xbox: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow
Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect
Visual Studio .NET Professional
Visual C++ 6.0 Standard
Visual SourceSafe
Xbox: The Suffering
Windows Longhorn 4051
Office 11
Office Professional Edition 2003
Xbox: Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
Xbox: Spy Hunter 2

Awesome, thx 'Internet Investigator' dude. Truly, you have your eye on the ball. I didn't realise Visual Studio was available.

*leech* *leech*

...but seriously

Many people that download overpriced bloatware for free do so for interest not profit.

By evaluating the software (otherwise unavailable to them) such people may discover a product worth purchasing (or not).

Either way, it increases the awareness of the inner-workings of your product, often resulting in recommendations which would othewise not be made. Recommendations sell more software than coordinated corporate mindfucks (sometimes known as advertising).

This is in sharp contrast to the professional software pirate who intends only to profit from selling it to others. Such a person doesn't use the software themselves so gains no insight nor makes recommendation. I believe that it's time that a distinction was made in law.

Additionally, companies are themselves to blame to some extent, due to indiscriminately saturating the media with adverts for products (using all manner of psychological techniques to convince the viewer to buy).

Even someone who isn't within your target market (often a home user/hobbyist) will feel the need to buy. Unfortunately for them the product is priced such as to indicate a target market consisting mainly of 'corporate users' (those who use a customer's money to purchase software for themselves).

Why don't such companies 'modularise' their software more finely? People would then be able to pick the features that are important to them.

Perhaps the effect would be that people would then choose which product to buy by considering feature-sets exclusively, rather than the size of the financial penalties.

/me pushes past the throng of lawyers, causing one to topple over and fall to the bottom of the ocean.

Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 6:22 am

ole wrote:

On the lighter side:

What did Bill Gates wife say to him, on their wedding night ????

No wonder you call it Microsoft. Laughing

lol, good one =b

Don't feel like a good time to rant right now, but 1 comment easyTree: modularization is the strength and philosophy of Open Source / Unix, monolithic integration of features and ease of use is the strength of commercial software. In the long run, OSS may win in all areas, but not right now.

Governments that are smart support OSS, like India. Because gov't think long term (real long term). Countries like US don't, because it's not in the interest of those in power. I, for one, welcome our Indian overlords (hope you caught that =b)

Now where are those Indian / Chinese hosting companies...

Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 6:57 am

Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps they should sue themselves for allowing Internet Explorer to download illegal software.

Good one

they will loose this as they lost to kaaza. This conflict will ONLY increase the intrest for this site, since this probably will be all over the news.. so soory M$, you loose. Again.