Seriously, we're exactly like Google! isoHunt makes its case

[rajputwarrior]

By Nate Anderson | Last updated about 3 hours ago

Last week, the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus held a press conference with RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol. They rolled out a new list of six horrific websites that make copyright infringement simple?and that just might destroy your job and family.

"An Internet of chaos may meet a utopian vision but surely undermines the societal values of safe and secure families and job and revenue-creating commerce," said Bainwol. "Shining the spotlight on these websites sends a vital message to users, advertisers, payment processors and governments around the world."

Canadian-based isoHunt found itself on the list and it wasn't pleased about the inclusion.

"One person's 'worst search engine' is another person's 'robust search engine'," said isoHunt's attorney, Ira Rothken, when I spoke with him this week. "If the RIAA has a problem with the manifestation of torrent files throughout the world on the Internet," he added, the group should take it out on those who host the torrent files.

isoHunt is just a search engine, he argues, citing a 90 percent overlap between the torrent files indexed by isoHunt and torrent files available through a Google search.

This "mere search engine" argument didn't save The Pirate Bay under Swedish law (though an appeal is pending), and it didn't save isoHunt under American law. isoHunt has been targeted in a long-running copyright infringement lawsuit in a California federal court, and a judge issued a summary judgment against the site last year. isoHunt was liable for "inducing infringement."

Ira Rothken

Last week, another blow fell as the judge issued a tough permanent injunction against isoHunt, demanding that it implement tough keyword-filtering rules based on movie titles submitted by rightsholders. It also must block such piratical search terms as "warez," telecine," and "jaybob."

Still, Rothken remains adamant that the site "doesn't do anything more than what a good, automated search engine ought to do." In our conversation, he made the case that search was simply too important to suffer these sorts of blanket injunctions.

"Should we as a society not allow torrent search engines because some groups like the major studios don't like the state of the Internet as it relates to .torrent files?" he asks.

The answer to that question will soon provide another piece of key judicial precedent for these types of cases.

Just another search engine?

Rothken's basic contention remains that isoHunt is a search engine, nothing more. Even if the site ran a tracker (its US-facing tracker was turned off in 2007), he says, it adds nothing to the basic argument about infringing behavior. "Trackers do not have any content going through them," says Rothken, comparing them favorably to sites like YouTube, which actually host infringing content themselves.

And other search engines link to loads of infringing content, even beyond .torrent files. Do a simple image search for any celebrity on Google, for instance, and many of the responses and thumbnails (which Google even caches on its own servers) are unauthorized and copyrighted.

"We all recognize that the greater good is to allow for robust search," says Rothken.

But isoHunt isn't like mainstream search engines in one key respect: it indexes only torrent files, a format used largely to distribute copyrighted material without authorization. Instead of scooping up torrents as part of its quest to index everything, isoHunt makes torrents its business.

Rothken concedes that the distinction "may have a bearing on the optics of the case," but argues that it "shouldn't have a bearing on the substance of the case."

I press on this point: how can the quantity of infringement not matter at all? If some new technology was used to break the law 999,999 times, but the millionth use was a legal one, wouldn't the sheer scale matter to a court?

"It may matter to a court right now," Rothken allows, but he says that it shouldn't. Search is just too important to society. "Regardless of the percentage of files, even if it's a large percentage of those files that ultimately will lead to downstream content that's unauthorized, search of that content should still be allowed... When you look at the total picture... do we believe that search engines for .torrent files should be banned altogether? Most people would say no."

Rightsholders aren't left without remedy here, it's just that they don't like the remedy: sending tens of thousands of DMCA takedown notices.

Unlike sites such as The Pirate Bay, which routinely mock takedown requests, isoHunt responds "every single time" to takedown requests, and those files are blocked by logging their hash values?identical copies will be kept out of the indexing system in future.

The federal trial court did recognize this, but it found that isoHunt's "inducement" of copyright infringement to be the overriding factor. Something similar happened to the Dutch P2P search engine Mininova last year; despite taking down links after a complaint, a Dutch judge said the site needed to exert some level of preemptive filtering due to the massive infringement it was facilitating.

"So vague and so ambiguous and so overbroad"

IsoHunt now faces the same restrictions in the US. It must filter its index using lists of titles supplied by US movie studios, but Rothken objects to the expansiveness of the order. It's not "narrow," he says, but "so vague and so ambiguous and so overbroad." In his view, the injunction will essentially force isoHunt to filter individual English words and numbers... like "Firefox," "Avatar," "10" and "24."

This is something of a blunt instrument?a German court recently recognized how that such filtering would lead to numerous false positives on a site like RapidShare. Filename filters alone, especially when they filter single words, could catch all sorts of things: parodies, a short clip compilation of The Godfather with voiceover criticism, the Firefox browser.

None of this made much headway with the trial judge, who did not even let the case proceed to trial (it was decided on summary judgment). But Rothken says the case is important to isoHunt, to founder Gary Fung, and to society, so he will pursue the case in "every court that will hear us."

isoHunt is currently asking for a stay of the injunction and plans to appeal the case.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/isohunt-seriously-were-exactly-like-google.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

[amon91]

They know they aren't. Google focuses on a huge range of content while IsoHunt is mainly a torrent service. When you host (or link to, whatever) torrents, it's your job to take down offending content if you find it, or if someone reports it to you, that's common sense. Claiming IsoHunt (or TPB as they also came up with that) are just like Google is too much of an abstract idea that makes little sense in the real world.

Don't shoot.

[Growled Member]

They should ask themselves why Google can get away with it and they can't, and modify their behavior accordingly.

[freeza]

Long live isohunt. Rise from the ashes, you awesome site.

[CentralDogma]

Google focuses on a huge range of content while IsoHunt is mainly a torrent service.

The problem is, there's no legal distinction between the two. You can't say that just because Google does so much more, the RIAA can't sue them for having links to torrents. Even if it's not their focus, they still have them and it opens them up to a law suit.

Just remember that torrents themselves don't have copyrighted material in them, they "organize" the sharing of such content. If links to torrents are found to be illegal, it's a slippery slope to saying any website with a path to pirated material is open to a law suit.

[treemonster]

there's nothing illegal about what they're doing anyway. this whole case is very curious.

[ylcard]

They should ask themselves why Google can get away with it and they can't, and modify their behavior accordingly.

Money ?

Why not sue the creator of the BT network ? He caused all of this, so he's just as responsible as any web site that "hosts" .torrents, both are mediums.

[y2kboy23]

You can use Google to search for torrents too! But then again Google has money and that's all the RIAA wants.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

You can use Google to search for torrents too! But then again Google has money and that's all the RIAA wants.

Isn't that argument flawed insofar as if money were all the RIAA wanted then they would pursue Google instead of ISOHunt?

I guess in a logical world ISOHunt (and other torrent sites like it) should filter their results to block illegal content. But the problem with torrent files is the same as any other file online: once it's out there, there will always be people willing to offer it. The scene will just be a lot more underground than it currently is.

[Brad.]

Whenever i look for a torrent of a leaked album before it's released in sotres I use Google. So I can see what isoHunt are saying..

[ylcard]

Isn't that argument flawed insofar as if money were all the RIAA wanted then they would pursue Google instead of ISOHunt?

I guess in a logical world ISOHunt (and other torrent sites like it) should filter their results to block illegal content. But the problem with torrent files is the same as any other file online: once it's out there, there will always be people willing to offer it. The scene will just be a lot more underground than it currently is.

I don't understand the economic side of things, but it's common sense (at least to me) that RIAA are pursuing those without money to guarantee their win, they'll still get their money in one way or another, it's just that whoever they're suing lacks the money to fight them, if they'll take on Google they'll then it's not guaranteed that they'll win.

I read a thread here on Neowin about Cadana's Music Industry (a lot of big companies, one of which is Sony for example) were sued by the artists for 6 billion dollars (I guess USD, although not sure), it's pretty fresh for a lawsuit, so I doubt that there's a verdict already, but I can't see them paying a cent, that's how it goes when you have the money to "help yourself out".

[Hot]

Google is a service that gets used for 99% good and 1% evil. isoHunt is a service that gets used for 1% good and 99% evil. Any further questions?

[The Teej]

If the RIAA/MPAA took on Google they'd have a hell of a fight on their hands, namely because other big players like Yahoo and Microsoft would probably join in to save their own asses in the possible event of Google losing on their own.

[Knife Party]

death to the RIAA, seriously, nothing more than Capitalist bloodhounds

[ylcard]

Google is a service that gets used for 99% good and 1% evil. isoHunt is a service that gets used for 1% good and 99% evil. Any further questions?

That's a bold statement, was that sarcasm ?

[yxz]

Google is a service that gets used for 99% good and 1% evil. isoHunt is a service that gets used for 1% good and 99% evil. Any further questions?

:rofl:

[Solid Knight]

Doesn't Google just link to sites like IsoHunt?

Yep, it does. Google isn't tracking torrents itself which is probably why they aren't being held accountable. IsoHunt on the other hand is a torrent tracker.

[yxz]

Doesn't Google just link to sites like IsoHunt?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cache%3Aisohunt.com

[ATLien_0]

Solid Knights point is good.

The difference here is that when your search for a Torrent on Google you will be given links to sites like IsoHunt in which you can download the*.torrent file.

IsoHunt is right that they are merely a search engine, for Torrents only however. They are correct that they don't actually store the media since they are not a tracker, but you are still a medium in which people can download the *.torrent file to connect the tracker.

The difference here is that you cannot download the torrent file directly on Google

Once all hosting sites like IsoHunt are down then you should see less on Google I am assuming

[PixilEyes]

Google is a service that gets used for 99% good and 1% evil. isoHunt is a service that gets used for 1% good and 99% evil. Any further questions?

Correction 9% good 1% evil 90% porn.

[Solid Knight]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cache%3Aisohunt.com

And the significance of having the main page cached is? The search still uses the live site.

[Lamp0]

I feel taking down these sites is pretty pointless. I think it's pretty obvious it's all about money, the money these companies think they deserve. But it's all part of the balancing act.

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Take one down and 2 more pop up.

It's a losing battle for the RIAA.

Once IPv6 comes full force and we all conect directly to the internet without ISPs, censorship will simply fall out the window. (Which is a good thing).

[PixilEyes]

Take one down and 2 more pop up.

It's a losing battle for the RIAA.

Once IPv6 comes full force and we all conect directly to the internet without ISPs, censorship will simply fall out the window. (Which is a good thing).

Off topic but can you explain this?

[Celtic Pride]

Take one down and 2 more pop up.

It's a losing battle for the RIAA.

Once IPv6 comes full force and we all conect directly to the internet without ISPs, censorship will simply fall out the window. (Which is a good thing).

You'll still need an ISP.