isoHunt

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isoHunt
Website logo
BitTorrent indexer
languages English
editorial staff Gary Fung
Registration optional
On-line 2003 (currently offline)
http://www.isohunt.tv/

isoHunt is an indexer for BitTorrent files. IsoHunt Inc., founded by Gary Fung in 2003, and the associated portal isohunt.com were among the most popular places on the Internet to find files that comply with the BitTorrent protocol until they closed . Isohunt.com went offline in 2013 after Gary Fung was required to pay $ 110 million in compensation for alleged copyright infringement . The case has parallels to the trial against the Swedish side The Pirate Bay . After the closure of isohunt.com, clones of the website appeared that look identical, also call themselves isohunt , but have different domain extensions . The isohunt.to site is now the successor to isohunt.com.

In 2006 isoHunt recorded 1 million torrents in its database and more than 17.76 million peers in indexed torrents. With 7.5 million visitors in May 2006, isoHunt was one of the most popular BitTorrent search engines. On average, isohunt.com received 20 million searches a month.

history

isoHunt was founded in January 2003 by Gary Fung. Soon after inception, he named SJF as vice president and author of the website. The name isoHunt is derived from the term ISO image , a file format that is customary for archiving CDs and DVDs on other data carriers true to the original. "Hunt" (English) is the "hunt".

IsoHunt was temporarily taken offline on January 16, 2007; it was stated that "Lawyers of our main ISP After a larger decided to pull us the plug without explanation." Hardware - Upgrade drove Fung on 22 January with the normal operation continues, but was due to multiple servers change often for short periods of time not available.

At the beginning of February 2007 , isoHunt moved its servers to Canada . On a copyright page, the operators stated that the move was due to US copyright laws, which protect intellectual and artistic property. Although the copyright page claims that content will be removed if the rightful owner requests it, the process of actually doing this is not easy to see through. isoHunt named Allen Parker as the contact responsible for the removal of illegally copied works.

On October 18, 2013 it was announced that isoHunt is ceasing to operate. In a settlement , Fung undertook to take the website offline and pay the suing Hollywood Studios a total of $ 110 million.

Legal

Correspondence with the MPAA

Selected components of the e-mail traffic between isoHunt and the MPAA were published in the isoHunt forum .

Legal proceedings

In February 2006 it was announced that the MPAA had taken legal action against isoHunt, TorrentBox , TorrentSpy , ed2k-it and other BitTorrent indices and trackers on the grounds that these websites allegedly facilitate copyright infringements. This contradicts the fact that similar results can also be obtained through general search engines like Google . The admissibility of this lawsuit is therefore disputed under US copyright law , in particular due to the “safe haven” provisions of the DMCA . On February 28, 2006, a case against Gary Fung was filed in the South New York District Court . Fung indicated that it did not want to close isoHunt voluntarily and opposed the MPAA's legal position. On August 18, 2006, Judge Stanton approved the transfer of the case from New York to California due to difficult parties and similar cases that had already been filed in the Central California District Court .

Warnings by the DMCA

isoHunt has often given in to DMCA warnings in the past and has worked with various rights owners such as the RIAA and Microsoft . This policy in dealing with the DMCA is described in detail on a separate page on the subject.

Others

isoHunt offered a paid membership, which enabled donors to use the website without advertising. Nevertheless, unlike many similar sites, registration was not mandatory. In similar cases, such as that of The Pirate Bay , users could already be identified through their donation payments.

isoHunt also had a strict data protection policy .

Technical details

At the beginning of 2007 isoHunt restructured its server configuration and newly acquired the hardware for the cluster on which the web server is operated. It has a total of 34 CPU cores of the AMD Opteron type , 70 GB RAM and 30 hard disks ( SATA up to 15k SCSI ).

References

  1. ↑ Gary Fung's web diary
  2. ↑ https://archive.today/20131031144011/http://www.gulli.com/news/22570-isohunt-wird-lossen-und-muss-110-millionen-strafe-zahlen-2013-10-18
  3. ↑ Statistics from BitTorrent-Tracker ( Memento from October 12, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Forum entry by the operator ( Memento from February 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Shutdown of torrent search engine: Isohunt operator promises Hollywood $ 110 million. Spiegel Online, October 18, 2013, accessed October 18, 2013 .
  6. ↑ isoHunt-Forum - Letters of the MPAA ( Memento of February 5, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ isoHunt DMCA Copyright Policy ( Memento from March 5, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ isoHunt Privacy Policy ( Memento from October 15, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Technical Details ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Web links