IsoHunt To Court: Google Is the Bigger Problem 270
Krystalo writes "isoHunt is still fighting its legal battle with the MPAA. In the latest episode, the torrent website filed a reply brief to the US Court of Appeals in which it suggests that Google, and not IsoHunt, is the largest BitTorrent search engine on the Internet."
Oh snap! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh snap! (Score:5, Funny)
Pinky, I know what we're going to do tonight, TRY TO SUE THE WORLD!
Re: (Score:3)
Pinky, I know what we're going to do tonight, TRY TO SUE THE WORLD!
In this version, they're both insane.
Re: (Score:2)
Pinky, I know what we're going to do tonight, TRY TO SUE THE WORLD!
In both versions, they're both insane.
FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, once isoHunt is on the hook for a billion dollars, and a legal precedent has been set, then they sue Google for a zillion dollars!
Then then blow all that money in the next fiscal quarter on hookers and coke. And then they all die from withdrawal symptoms.
So here's hoping they win!
Re: (Score:2)
Technicalities (Score:2)
Being the largest search engine on the internet by the margin Google is means that it's the largest search engine for nearly EVERY category. Still, some engines were created for torrents, and Google wasn't.
Re:Technicalities (Score:5, Insightful)
In any event, I don't think "But he's doing it too!" has ever been considered a valid legal defense.
Re:Technicalities (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be. Equal protection under the law and all that. Selective enforcement of laws is a major vector for corruption.
Re: (Score:2)
So nobody can ever be sued or arrested because nobody else has been sued or arrested for what they did?
That's a fair point. Obviously we need some way to get started. Lets prioritize by wealth, which is roughly equivalent to power. If you can point to someone wealthier than you who is doing the same thing and hasn't been prosecuted you're off the hook.
bankrupt yourself attempting to pursue action against every nationwide party you believe might be engaging in the same activity
If you can't enforce the la
Re: (Score:3)
It's actually a neat tactic once you think it through.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't it a defense (albeit a weaker one) against copyright and trademark claims? If they can show that Google is getting a free pass, then it could be parlayed into a claim that the copyright holders aren't properly defending their claims?
I suspect they're not doing it to convince the judge/jury, as they are to force Google to get involved (since G probably doesn't want any sort of precedent around search result blacklisting.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
>>>some engines were created for torrents
Arresting me because my search engine scours & provides links to piratebay.org, torrents.com, et cetera..... makes as little sense as arresting me because I possess photos of murder victims.
I didn't commit the crime. THEY committed the crime. I'm not liable for the acts of others.
Next I suppose you'll arrest google for providing links to child porn (nudist websites).
Re: (Score:2)
Next I suppose you'll arrest google for providing links to child porn (nudist websites).
Now that's just silly. You can't arrest a company... I mean, where will you put the handcuffs?
Re: (Score:2)
I give that argument a roughly 0% chance of success in court.
Seriously, at some point you (well, IsoHunt) have to be pragmatic and deal with the world / legal system as it actually is, not as they'd like it to be.
Re: (Score:2)
Nudism isn't child-porn.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While I think it's pretty silly that any sort of nudism is sort of automatically considered porn, there's a pedophile witch hunt on in America, and people have been convicted for possesion of child porn even for having non-nude pictures of children. I'm not sure what the legal arguments were, but I suspect they were something like "he looks like a pedophile, get a rope". I sure as Hell wouldn't want anything to do with any nudism pictures or films in America today.
Re: (Score:2)
Google has such a feature to make finding torrents easy, filetype:torrent.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but Google has lawyers (Score:3)
Real lawyers, and lots of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And soon, they will execute that plan!
Sorry, my kid's been watching too much Bolt.
Re: (Score:2)
And a business besides search engine for pirated content.
Cloud logo? (Score:2)
Is everything related to the internet suddenly lumped in with the Cloud now?
What Google is doing is irrelevant to this case (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like the MPAA is suing IsoHunt not Google. What Google is doing doesn't matter as far as this case is concerned; they aren't a party to the case. Maybe the MPAA will go after Google next (not likely).
This is a typical infringer strategy: tell the court that some one else is doing it and more of it. Hasn't mattered in the past and will not matter in this case. The MPAA gets to choose who it wants to sue and when.
What happened to torrents are free speech? (Score:2)
There can be no denying that torrents are speech. Torrent files in and of themselves are only contact data.
The supreme court can rule that giving money to political causes is free speech but publishing the phone number of a hooker isn't?
Go ahead MPAA... (Score:2)
Sue Google. I can't wait to watch you and your bullshit case go down in flames faster than the fucking Hindenburg.
Wonder what would happen... (Score:2)
...if ISOhunt changed their search engine for a day, so that any searches were just forwarded to google with a filetype:torrent string appended?
It wouldn't make any difference to the legal case of course, which is more about ISOhunt being poor and accessible (and therefore prosecutable), unlike google. It'll also show users what magic incantations they need to mutter if/when torrent aggregators are closed, and maybe then we'll see MPAA vs. Google.
I don't torrent myself, I just buy lots of DVD's (except when
Intent and Ratios (Score:3)
Compare the ratio of links to pirated material on Google to that on IsoHunt. IsoHunt loses.
Compare the response of Google to a takedown request to that of IsoHunt. IsoHunt loses.
Google makes at least a minimal attempt at not being a part of the distribution chain, IsoHunt on the other hand makes no attempt. IsoHunt loses.
You can argue that IsoHunt isn't doing anything wrong all you want, and you'll be a part of the small minority of idiots who think they'll win this battle. Good luck with that.
Re: (Score:2)
- Google has all of the pirated links, Isohunt only has some of them. ;)
- I thought IsoHunt had been fairly quick on takedowns when requested? I might be mixing them up with someone else.
What I learned... (Score:2)
[rant]As for the people at isoHunt I wish them well and hope they aren't treated to badly. I say that because the powers that be seem to really over react to what they were doing. I
Re: (Score:2)
Use Google to search for torrent files. Thanks for the heads up. :) Honestly though Torrentz have jumped the shark so to speak. Most people I know have moved on to other means of file sharing. Anytime I download a torrent file I get a nasty email from my ISP stating that I was flagged for copyright infringement by a third party.
Public trackers are just that: public trackers. Your IP will be listed as a leecher/seeder.
Protip: don't forget about encryption.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone here thinks they have Asperger's when it's probably well below 5%. Fortunately not everyone here is socially awkward and trying to make excuses for it.
Re:Purpose and intents (Score:5, Insightful)
I couldn't agree more. The increasing fad among geeks to self diagnose themselves as mildly autistic ever since some report came out a few years ago has really tended to turn my stomach. What the fuck is wrong with you that you go around wanting to have something be wrong with you? Or is it just a desperate clinging on to an explanation for a few awkward personality traits that can be blamed on something beyond your control?
Ten and fifteen years ago, everyone went around saying they had ADD and ADHD. Now they go around saying they have Aspergers. You don't have aspergers, you fucking drama queens.
Re: (Score:2)
Ten and fifteen years ago, everyone went around saying they had ADD and ADHD. Now they go around saying they have Aspergers. You don't have aspergers, you fucking drama queens.
I nominate "being a man" as the next hip disorder to have.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Purpose and intents (Score:4, Funny)
The increasing fad among geeks to self diagnose themselves as mildly autistic ever since some report came out a few years ago has really tended to turn my stomach. What the fuck is wrong with you that you go around wanting to have something be wrong with you?
Most likely it's mild autism.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Another new account and troll post by the poster known as devxo, balls of steel, Billy the Boy, and divxio.
Re:Purpose and intents (Score:5, Insightful)
Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is.
The Mob isn't exclusively used for selling counterfeit goods, so I guess they're not guilty of it?
Claiming Google isn't doing anything illegal but isoHunt is because it's all they do is crap. It's just that isoHunt doesn't have the deep pockets of a Google, Bing or Yahoo. If the MPAA thought they could win they'd be suing the big search engines too.
Oh don't be silly. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the Google homepage:
http://www.google.com/ [google.com]
It has no mention of any particular search terms at all, let alone intent.
This is the IsoHunt homepage:
http://isohunt.com/ [isohunt.com]
It mentions the last 10 searches - which aren't exactly searches for Linux distributions - and what's that in the top right? Oh! How lovely, I can click through to the latest Video, TV, Game, etc. releases. What's more - I can add a release!
Even if I search for "Toy Story 3", these are Google's first page results (I'm logged out, so no
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Oh don't be silly. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
That's probably true. But we've seen several court verdicts (Piratebay, Limewire etc) that show the courts consider it's the intent that's important, which would give Google a much better chance in court than Isohunt and the like have.
Isohunt, TPB, Limewire run their business on providing access to copyrighted content, take that away and 99% of their users aren't interested anymore. Google providing access to torrent links is more like an accidental side-effect, and 99% of their users wouldn't even notice i
Re:Purpose and intents (Score:4, Informative)
(1) They shouldn't have modded you down to (0). Everyone, even idiots, are entitled to express an opinion.
>>>Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is.
(2) Clearly you've never used isohunt. Isohunt doesn't distribute material. Nor *.tor files. It doesn't even provide a tracker! It's simply google with the "filetype torrent" tag.
Re: (Score:2)
while torrent is a valid way to distribute something like Linux, isoHunt is hardly where a person looking for a Linux distro would go to find it
Bullshit, I do it all the time. Way faster than clicking through websites to find a download link.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's Isohunt's fault that the majority of things that third parties choose to share via torrent are illegal.
Re: (Score:2)
Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is.
Wrong.
It's a common problem with people who have Asperger's syndrome...
I'm starting to see why people repeat themselves a lot around you.
Re: (Score:2)
Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is.
Wrong.
Now convince any court of that. I don't think IsoHunt can.
What matters legally isn't what's technically true; what matters is what you can prove (or, more accurately, sell/persuade.)
Re: (Score:2)
What matters legally isn't what's technically true; what matters is what you can prove (or, more accurately, sell/persuade.)
Fair point. Ah, that's what the other poster was saying... I responded too quickly, I guess I have Aspbergers. :)
My bad.
Re: (Score:3)
>>>We need copyright so we can have successful companies like and products like Canonical and Microsoft
"There is not, in nature, a right to protect your ideas from copying..... just as you may light your taper by my fire, without diminishing my heat, so may you copy my ideas without diminishing my use of my invention." - Thomas Jefferson, 1780s
Re:Purpose and intents (Score:5, Informative)
>>>Jefferson actually supported IP laws
Considering this long and lengthy argument from 1786, I don't know how can you reach that braiddead conclusion. Note the final bolded sentence.
"Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
"Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
Re: (Score:2)
random but why is Toyota on your Corp Blacklist?
The Board of Review. (Score:3)
"Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
Men change.
Jefferson's position on the granting of patents changed through the years. In his article "Godfather of American Invention," Silvio Bedini notes that in 1787 Jefferson's opposition to monopoly in any form led him to oppose patents. But by 1789, Jefferson's firm opposition had weakened. Writing to James Madison, Jefferson said he approved the Bill of Rights as far as it went, but would like to see the addition of an article specifying that "Monopolies may be allowed to person for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding --- years, but for no longer term and for no other purpose."
In 1789, while Jefferson was still in Paris...the first patent act was enacted into law April 10, 1790. Under the new law, the Secretaries of War and State and the Attorney General constituted a three-man review board, with the Secretary of State (Jefferson), playing the leading role. Two months after the law was passed, Jefferson remarked it had "given a spring to invention beyond his conception."
Jefferson continued to perform his patent office duties until the patent act of February 21, 1793...
[T]he new law made the granting of patents almost entirely an automatic matter; the three-man review board was replaced by an administrative structure. In 1802, Secretary of State James Madison created a separate patent office for handling all claims.
In 1836, the patent law was completely rewritten, effecting a compromise of sorts between the strictness of Jefferson's tenure and the free-wheeling acceptance of all patent claims during the intervening years. The 1836 law is still in effect today.
Guiding Jefferson while patents came to him for review was the belief that patents should be given to particular machines, not to all possible applications or uses of them; that mere change in material or form gave no claim; and that exclusive rights of an invention must always be considered in terms of its social benefit.
Quoting Jefferson on invention and intellectual property rights is not without irony.
Jefferson was notoriously spendthrift. Living his life one jump ahead of the sheriff, as a proper Southern gentleman should.
Jefferson's architecture and invention were - with the exception of an early moldboard plow - almost exclusively - meant for use by men of his own race and class.
This was not man who was going to invent bifocals, a lightening rod or a Franklin stove. This was not a man who was going t
Re: (Score:3)
>>>Jefferson actually supported IP laws
Considering this long and lengthy argument from 1786, I don't know how can you reach that braiddead conclusion. Note the final bolded sentence.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
Jefferson's position seems pretty clear to me. He does not believe that the rights to ideas and inventions are property rights. Thus, there are not fundamental rights in the same way that property rights are (in the Lockian philosophy which underpins the US constitution). However, he does recognize the economic importance of protecting the creator's interests in "productions in literature, and [...] inventions in the arts" for a limited time through legislation.
This is in contrast to how many view "intellec
Re: (Score:2)
Isohunt isn't made for distributing copyrighted content illegally, nor is any other site, including google.
It's not their job to determine what is illegal and what isn't, nor to police what people are distributing. I think you forget that little section 230 thing.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>section 230 thing.
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." It does not apply to federal criminal law, intellectual property law, and electronic communications privacy law.
http://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/230 [eff.org]
Re: (Score:2)
It's like starting up a site called HunterHunt. Not the site owner's fault that 99% of hunters on that site hunt humans you don't like in exchange for a few thousand in cash.
Re: (Score:2)
I though isoHut was only a search engine and didn't even host the torrent files but indexed other torrent sites.
Re: (Score:2)
You pull up Canonical, as to say that we need copyright law to enforce the GPL?
That is correct. However, it is so because the law is the tool available for enforcing the philosophy of *sharing*. I'm sure RMS would be ok with a law that did away with copyrights and said that all code and culture that was distributed should be freely shareable.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Asperger's and being a geek are not mutually exclusive... not even remotely. In fact, it is closer to true to say "Asperger's is to Geek as Square is to Rectangle"
2. We do not need Copyright to have successful companies like Microsoft and Canonical. In fact, copyright on software is simply a misapplication of copyright law. Software has all sorts of properties that is not typically identified with things which are copyrightable. Books are copyrightable. I can own a book and do all the things I want
Re: (Score:2)
In fact, it is closer to true to say "Asperger's is to Geek as Square is to Rectangle"
... or to put it bluntly Aspergers are square.
Re: (Score:2)
"Google isn't solely made and used for distributing copyrighted content illegally. IsoHunt, as well as The Pirate Bay, is. Us geeks have to learn that such things matter in court."
So a otherwise gainfully employed part time drug dealer is is not doing anything illegal?
Intent, purpose, gain or even knowledge of the law are of little interest to the court's except at sentencing, which only occurs after the actual guilty/innocent verdict
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Purpose and intents (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in high school, the cops did a drug sting on campus. They busted the drug dealers AND the people that told them how to find the drug dealers. being part of the problem means you are part of the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Which, is pretty reaching considering in some places it's pretty hard not to know who is dealing, and knowing to stay away from them can be a valuable skill.
That would be like arresting people who can plainly point out which are the crack houses -- it's kind of obvious, and simply knowing where they are
Re:Purpose and intents (Score:5, Insightful)
Which, is pretty reaching considering in some places it's pretty hard not to know who is dealing, and knowing to stay away from them can be a valuable skill. (...) And, they wonder why people aren't always keen to cooperate with police.
Well being a sting people didn't know they were talking to cops. The second part is the difference between knowing and sending them business, I guess it depends on how they asked. It's one to thing to comment on it in conversation, but if you're asked "Dude, do you know how to get some pot around here?" and you say "Look for that red-haired guy who hangs out down by the C building, he always has good stuff." you've done more than comment on what looks like a crack house.
Re: (Score:2)
My school had a "C" building, so this response made me jump. :)
Amusingly the buildings were out of order; C was between "A" and "B". :)
Re:Purpose and intents (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And you would be wrong. Pleas and convictions all around. Knowingly Aiding a crime is a crime in its own right.
Re: (Score:2)
And? I believe that was idiotic as well.
being part of the problem
Assuming there's a problem at all, that is.
Re: (Score:2)
Back in high school, the cops did a drug sting on campus.
Thankfully, copyright infringement is not a criminal category yet.
They busted the drug dealers AND the people that told them how to find the drug dealers.
By that reasoning, we could lock up most politicians. They've been telling me there's child porn on the internet for years.
being part of the problem means you are part of the problem.
Are you sure?
Re: (Score:2)
Thankfully, copyright infringement is not a criminal category yet.
Haven't you read the front page?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/16/1441221/White-House-Wants-New-Copyright-Law-Crackdown [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Erm, that was exactly his point - that it doesn't *matter* about the precise technical details. The legal system cares more about intent.
Google 'colour of bits'.
Re: (Score:3)
>>>IsoHunt willy facilitates copyright infringement a
WRONG. Isohunt doesn't distribute torrents. /b> Why can't people pull their braisn out of their anuses, and WAKE UP? Isohunt.com is not a tracker. It used to be several years ago, but not anymore. Now they are identical to google - just providing links.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>IsoHunt willy facilitates copyright infringement a
WRONG
Oh. So you are saying they don't facilitate copyright infringement?
just providing links
Oh. So they are facilitating copyright infringement. What was your point?
Re: (Score:3)
CONTEXT KingMotley. "people are posting torrents to isohunt" is what the original poster claimed. Except that's wrong. You CAN'T post torrents to isohunt.
Jeez.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
That argument is essentially "don't punish me because THEY DID IT TOO". All that does is get both of you in trouble.
If they decide to go after Google, that's a separate court case....and of course we all know that the winner in court is usually the one that can afford the most expensive lawyers and Google has a *LOT* of cash.
Re: (Score:2)
What % of IsoHunt searches are used for finding illegal torrents? What % of Google searches are used for finding illegal torrents? That's what will matter to the court.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Intent isn't very relevent for speeding, because you're required to monitor the speed of your vehicle. Intent matters in many other areas of the law (though sadly a great many recent laws specifically exclude intent, which is pretty messed up).
Re: (Score:2)
let's look at it a different way... if someone who has never dealt with illegal material before wants to look, which is more likely the first place they go?
I'd say google most likely.
"I do illegal stuff, and more than he does, but as a percentage I don't do it as much as he does!" isn't a very good defence.
Let's face it, there's only one reason the media industry is going after the small players and not google, and that's because google would likely put up a much better fight.
Re: (Score:3)
No, the Sony Betamax decision established that mere percentages of illegal use are not relevant, but the Grokster decision established that how you promote your technology is. With those precedents, the case is likely to come down to the question of whether IsoHunt ever actively promoted the illegal uses of their system—something Google has never been accused of.
Re: (Score:2)
Consider that if you're having to try to split those hairs and argue that point here, IsoHunt's chances of successfully arguing it to an almost certainly non-technical judge are not good.
Re: (Score:2)
out of curiosity, do you think google would have a better chance of arguing exactly the same point to the same judge? and if so, why?
Re: (Score:2)
It is.
That doesn't mean it's wrong, but it is a crime. What makes it a crime? Laws written that say it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
filetype:torrent
Thank you Google!
HEX
Re: (Score:2)
Well kid, two wrongs don't make a right...
Maybe you missed the memo, but the world got more complicated than that after kindergarten.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well kid, two wrongs don't make a right...
You went the wrong way with it.
The assumption is that what google does is not wrong.
The point of IsoHunt's defense is not that "two wrongs make a right", but rather that google is doing nothing wrong, and that isohunt is really just a search engine like google, and therefore, like google, isohunt is not doing anything wrong.
To paraphrase your analogy:
"They sound like my 8 year old nephew who protested the other day when he was chastised for calling his little dog a