The isoHunt BitTorrent tracker closes after being defeated against MPAA

isoHunt, a ten-year-old BitTorrent tracker, will be closed within a week as part of an agreement with the American Film Association (MPAA), The Verge writes . Under the terms of the agreement, which completed a multi-year lawsuit, the founder of the site, Gary Fung, has pledged to close isoHunt and three other sites - Podtropolis, TorrentBox and Edtk-it.com, redirecting to isoHunt for seven days.



According to Forbes, Gary Fang was to appear before the court on November 5, at the end of which the MPAA expected to receive compensation of up to $ 600 million. But yesterday Fang decided to admit defeat, agreeing to pay a smaller, but still huge amount of 110 million, and it is not clear where he will get this money from.



The isoHunt conflict with the film industry began back in 2006, when MPAA blamed the resource for promoting copyright infringement on a massive scale. Fung argued that the site functions essentially as Google and falls under the principle of "safe harbor" of the DMCA law, which allows Internet services not to be responsible for illegal content posted by users if the service removes them upon request of the copyright holders.

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However, in March of this year, the court did not agree with this interpretation. He determined that Fang was well aware of piracy on his network and did not do anything to prevent it, instead actively encouraging users to download torrents with specific movies and help people find copyrighted content.



The MPAA said that the agreement reached “clearly makes it clear that those who build a business on encouraging, providing opportunities and helping others to infringe copyrights are violators themselves, and will be held accountable for their illegal actions.”



Fang, meanwhile, published a farewell message on his website: “It's sad to leave his brainchild. But I fought well, I finished the race and I remained steadfast. Ten and a half years, isoHunt is a long journey through the definitions of any business and an eternity in the era of Internet startups. ”