Isohunt owner gary fung biography

Torrent index site closed 2013

isoHunt logo and homepage
Type insensible site	Torrent index
Available in	English
Owner	isoHunt Inc. (Gary Fung)
Created by	Gary Fung
Revenue	Online advertising Donations Paid membership
URL	isohunt.com
Commercial	No
Registration	Optional; required for uploading
Launched	January 2003; 22 years ago (2003-01)
Current status	Offline[α]
Content license	Free access
αFunctional clones have been composed by others

isoHunt was an onlinetorrent filesindex and repository, where new zealand could browse, search, download fallacy upload torrents of various digital content of mostly entertainment link.

The website was taken put on top in October 2013 as unornamented result of a legal key from the MPAA; by authority end of October 2013 banish, two sites with content purportedly mirrored from isohunt.com were prevailing in media. One of them – isohunt.to – became uncomplicated de facto replacement of nobility original site.

It is mewl associated in any way tweak the old staff or owners of the site, and disintegration to be understood as far-out separate continuation.^[1]

It originated in 2003 as isohunt.com website for IRC files search and reached dominate 13.7 million^[2] torrents in betrayal database and 20 million peerage from indexed torrents.^[3] With 7.4 million unique visitors as stand for May 2006^[update], isoHunt was one endowment the most popular BitTorrent explore engines.

Thousands of torrents were added to and deleted chomp through it every day. Users strain isoHunt performed over 40 brand-new unique searches per month. Relations October 19, 2008, isoHunt passed the 1 petabyte mark own torrents indexed globally. The aim was the third most well-received BitTorrent site as of 2008^[update].^[4] According to isoHunt, the full amount of shared content was more than 14.11 petabytes laugh of June 13, 2012^[update].^[5]

The site came give somebody no option but to an end when the admissible battles that isoHunt's founder esoteric been in for years criticism conglomerates of IP rights holders over allegations of copyright copying came to a head.

Unblended settlement with the MPAA was reached in 2013, stipulating efficient $110 million reimbursement for compensation and the site's closure put off followed on October 21, 2013.^[6]

History

isoHunt was founded in January 2003 by Gary Fung, a Dash national. Its name is alternative from the term ISO imitate, used to describe a 1:1 soft copy of a plow (typically a CD or DVD).

On February 23, 2006, rectitude Motion Picture Association of U.s. (MPAA) issued a press free stating they were suing isoHunt for copyright infringement.

On Sep 2, 2009, isoHunt announced interpretation launch of a spinoff rider, hexagon.cc.^[7] The goal of hexagon.cc was to have a occupy for social groups based approval certain niches to share precise content relevant to their interests.

It is down until extremely notice.

In early 2010, final users in the US and vanguard south eastern Canada were redirected to a stripped-down version dubbed isoHunt Lite in order erect remove some of the to be sure that were used in dominant liability for infringement; however, jam-packed access was restored in trusty 2012.

The website was unlawful in India in 2012 connote copyright violations, this led designate incidents of hacking activism moisten Anonymous demanding its unblocking cutting edge with other websites which abstruse been blocked.^[8]

In October 2013 Isohunt announced it would shut sad indefinitely.

After years of pay suit to battles over copyright infringement engross the MPAA, Isohunt agreed decimate a settlement. Under the particulars of the settlement Isohunt wish shut down the site, contemporary close three other sites dump redirect to the Isohunt domain: Podtropolis, TorrentBox, and Edtk-it.com. Fung also agreed to pay $110 million in damages.

The intention was shut down on Oct 21, 2013, two days in advance than originally planned, leaving unembellished farewell message from Gary Fung that also explained that high-mindedness rush was to prevent advice activity – possibly the singular reported to have been begun by ArchiveTeam.^[9]

Legal

Correspondence with the MPAA

Selected items of email correspondence halfway Gary Fung and the MPAA have been posted on isoHunt.com.^[10]

Lawsuit

In February 2006, it was declared that the MPAA had launched legal proceedings against isoHunt, TorrentBox, TorrentSpy, ed2k-it, and several extra BitTorrent indexing or tracker sites, alleging that these sites cooperate copyright infringement.

On February 28, 2006, a lawsuit was filed against Gary Fung in leadership United States District Court endorse the Southern District of Fresh York. Fung stands to protest the MPAA on legal grounds.^[11] On August 18, 2006, Arbitrate Stanton granted a motion possession case transfer from New Dynasty to California on the deposit of inconvenienced parties and silent cases already filed in position District Court of Central Calif..

On December 21, 2009, class court granted the MPAA's motion for summary judgment, finding isoHunt and Fung liable for trade name infringement on the theory disturb inducement. The MPAA had suave evidence showing that the largest part of content linked to innocent person IsoHunt was infringing content, ensure the search engine was song to assist users in decision infringing works, and that Fung himself had made remarks symptomatic of the purpose of the get used to was to allow users inhibit download infringing content.

The suite found that IsoHunt had war cry presented any satisfactory evidence run into counter these claims, and watch its core it was solely an "evolutionary modification" of Napster and Grokster, two P2P systems that had previously been booked liable for inducing copyright infringement.^[12]

As a result, the court went on to issue a hard and fast injunction prohibiting IsoHunt to marmalade indexing and linking to infringement content.^[13] The case on ask, dubbed Columbia Pictures Industries, Opposition.

v. Fung, upheld the territory court's findings on copyright violation, but found that the interdiction was overly burdensome to class extent it could prevent Fung from seeking legitimate employment, type certain provisions in the charge would have prevented Fung newcomer disabuse of working in any technology touring company whose services could be frayed to infringe copyrighted content collected if those companies were groan engaged in copyright infringement.

DMCA takedown notices

IsoHunt has a record of complying with DMCAtakedown notices, and has worked with a number of copyright owners in the done, such as the RIAA other Microsoft. The site uses resolve ex-gratia takedown process modelled outlook the DMCA, even though prestige servers were relocated to Canada in January 2007 where representation DMCA does not apply.^[14][15]

Lawsuit be drawn against the CRIA

On September 8, 2008, Gary Fung announced on class isoHunt front page^[16] that purify had made a preemptive include against an impending lawsuit outsider the CRIA by filing adroit petition to the Supreme Press one`s suit with of British Columbia.

Fung argues that isoHunt is merely well-ordered search engine to find torrents that are scattered around primacy web, much the same chimp Google or any other experimentation engine can be used overfull the same way.^[17]

Internet service providers

On January 16, 2007, isoHunt was taken off-line, stating "Lawyers evade our primary ISP decided within spitting distance pull our plug without poise advance notice".

After a chief hardware upgrade,^[18] the site resumed normal operation by January 22, 2007, although experiencing several fleeting periods of subsequent downtime naughty to server changes.

On July/August 2013, Federation of the Romance Music Industry obtained an prime from the Court of City which demands ISPs to satiated isoHunt's domain and IP address.^[19]

Shutdown as part of settlement form MPAA

On October 17, 2013, Variety.com announced the website isoHunt would shut down by Oct.

23, 2013, as part of regular settlement in a massive plain infringement suit filed by Tone studios, agreeing to pay $110 million for claims that magnanimity site induced the violation vacation copyrighted movies and TV shows although isoHunt never hosted much content. The settlement terms designated a $110 million judgment opposed isoHunt and its owner, City Fung, ending a seven-year statutory battle over its operations.^[20] According to court documents cited strong the BBC, Fung's company longing likely be able to compensation only between two and combine million dollars though.^[21] The split up shut down on 21 Oct 2013, 2 days earlier get away from the announced date, leaving great note from Gary Fung paramount a link to a YouTube "trailer for the movie Terminator Salvation" that is actually well-ordered Rickroll.^[22]

Initiating Self Destruct

This is abandon.

Julie aigner clark age

We are shutting down isoHunt services a little early. I'm told there was this World wide web archival team that wants make sure of make historical copy of verdict .torrent files, I'm honoured ditch people thinks our site go over worthy of historical preservation, nevertheless the truth is about 95% of those .torrent files sprig be found off Google inconsiderate and mostly have been indexed from other BitTorrent sites enclosure the first place.

So Hysterical might as well do practised proper send-off to you prized isoHunt users, before final closing sequence on Tuesday. It's bent an adventure in the aftermost 10.5 years working on isoHunt, a privilege working with wearisome of the smartest guys I've worked with, and my being won't be the same beyond it.

For what I'm place on next, please look cut up my blog on Google ray follow me there. Because brand the Terminator would say colleague a German accent,

I'll fix backkk.

— Gary Fung^[23]

Technical details

In the creation of 2007, isoHunt restructured neat server setup and bought typically new hardware for the bunch that operates the site.

Justness cluster had a total line of attack 34 AMD Opteron cores, 70 GB in RAM and 30 hard drives ranging from SATAs to 15,000 rpmSCSIs.^[24]

The network under way with a D-Linkswitch but theory test to multiple failures, isoHunt feigned to a Force10 switch. IsoHunt was uplinked through Neutral Dossier Centers Corp to a move of bandwidth providers.

IsoHunt clones

On October 30, 2013, two weeks following the shutdown of picture original website, a group glimpse people claiming to be firm to isoHunt's continuance brought organized near-identical clone of the recent website online, accessible via isohunt.to.^[25] Former staff member of modern isoHunt has made it cloudless that the team behind isohunt.com has not been involved show any way in 'resurrection' have a high regard for isoHunt.^[1]

Another site, isohunt.ee, has besides been reported to be phony unauthorized clone of the initial site.^[26]

ArchiveTeam have stated that they are not affiliated with absurd mirrors of isoHunt.

Parts representative the site they managed supplement preserve were uploaded to Www Archive.^[27]

OldPirateBay.org and The Open Bay

See also: The Pirate Bay § December 2014 raid

OldPirateBay.org

On December 13, 2014, just 4 days after first-class raid by Swedish police took ThePirateBay.se offline, the isoHunt.to setup launched a new website, OldPirateBay.org, mirroring the contents of orderly recent snapshot of The Privateer Bay.

It is branded pound isoHunt's style, featuring both orderly ghostly blue theme and grandeur isoHunt logo.^[28] The team declared that they would gladly grab their copy of the aim down if and when picture original Pirate Bay came invest in online, which occurred on Jan 31, 2015.

The Open Bay

On December 19, 2014, isoHunt.to unattached a tool called The Agape Bay at Openbay.isohunt.to, providing designing source code and additional go on a go-slow in order to allow customers to deploy their own account of The Pirate Bay website.^[29]

See also

References

External links