Isohunt judge says MPAA has yet to prove direct infringment

File-sharing sites haven't had a great year, especially in court, but on Wednesday they received a smidgen of good news.

Ira Rothken, Isohunt's attorney

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET News)

The Motion Picture Association of America asked a federal court to rule that Isohunt was liable for copyright violations committed by its users, but the judge in the case was unconvinced. In his order, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson said the studios had yet to prove that the Isohunt's users had broken U.S. law.

Lawyers for the MPAA, the trade group representing the six major Hollywood film studios, are trying to convince the judge that Isohunt encouraged and contributed to the infringing activity of users. Wilson gave the MPAA until Sept. 15 to file a brief that convinces him direct infringement at the site was committed by those in the U.S. Apparently, Wilson has questions about whether U.S. residents have pirated content using Isohunt.

"United States copyright laws do not reach acts of infringement that take place entirely abroad," Wilson, wrote in his order.

A spokeswoman for the MPAA did not immediately have a response.

The significance of the judge's order, at least from the point of view of Ira Rothken, Isohunt's attorney, is that MPAA's investigators have struggled to draw specific examples of infringement occurring in the U.S.

"Our view is that it would be difficult if not impossible," Rothken said, "to be able to trace any direct infringement to the users of the Isohunt's site in a manner that would hold Isohunt responsible for the infringing conduct. I think the judge's order will hopefully demonstrate to the court that Isohunt, besides lacking knowledge of direct infringement, can't possibly be held liable for users conduct, especially since any such conduct occurs after they leave the site."

Rothken is hoping to argue Isohunt's case before a jury, something that no other BitTorrent sites have managed to do.

"I believe there has not been a single case in U.S. law where there has been a decision on the merits of a Torrent search engine," Rothken said. "We're cautiously optimistic Judge Wilson will deny plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and ultimately there will be a trial on the merits."

Some of the cases that have gone against BitTorrent or file-sharing sites Sweden-based BitTorrent search engines, The Pirate Bay, was brought up on criminal misconduct charges and TorrentSpy's case was decided on a discovery sanction. Some of the issues in the Usenet.com case closely resemble Isohunt and TorrentSpy's, although the company is not a BitTorrent tracker or search engine.

Usenet.com is a company that enabled users to access the Usenet network and it too lost on a discovery sanction.

Most of these companies claim to do nothing more than help people locate files. One question often asked by readers is how is this different than what Google offers? One can find plenty of infringing content using the behemoth search engine.

"I believe the difference is that for one reason or another courts seem to place greater social importance on the Google search engine," Rothken said. "Courts also tend to frown on search engines created to find specific file types like .torrent files. And other than that there is no difference (Isohunt and Google)."

[Renegade Knight]

"The Motion Picture Association of America asked a federal court to rule that Isohunt was liable for copyright violations committed by its users" <br /> <br />Well heck, by that logic Movie Studios would be guilty of the copyright violations of their users since they enable piracy by providing source material for pirates.

[8301]

Glad to see at least one person in government is standing up for rights and justice instead of money.

[SIGHUP]

Or the MPAA has not given him enough money yet.

[shinkukage09]

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and agree with SIGHUP

[tektaktyks]

its just like charging craigslist owner with the prostitution acts the sites users committed

[perfectblue97]

Didn't they already try this one? I think that the relevant legal term is "Facilitation", in the hands of big business this allows pretty much means that a company could sue a computer store for selling blank CDs to a guy with a basement pirating operation. It's a pretty open ended law that was brought in to allow the police to charge people who supply or assist organized criminals with things that are otherwise perfectly legal. Like selling bullets to a mobster. Selling bullets is perfectly legal under federal law, but if you sell them to somebody who later uses them in a crime and you know that the person is a criminal, the act of selling becomes a crime in itself.<br /><br />Big business abuses laws like this all the time.

[rcardona2k]

As principles in the search business the big players (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) ought to step in and file friend-of-the-court briefs defending smaller niche engines. When the first amendment is under attack the big media players (NYT, Post, etc) step and do the same.

[esiders]

I say it is time to hit MPAA right where it hurts, the bank roll. Our money built the monster and we should just stop feeding money so it will die. Not only are they after this company but they have gone after others like RealDVD. Enough is enough and Money is tight right now so it is a boycott of all new movie media. Everyone should let them know too.

[calculatorwatch]

i agree, we should just download our movies off isohunt instead of paying to see them... oh wait nvm

[sharmajunior]

These MPAA mofos need to chill and get off of our backs. They can't control what gets circulated around the web. Besides, the number of people actually sharing from the US is much less than the number sharing content (both legal and illegal(copyright protected)) which is so much more.

[perfectblue97]

The MPAA needs to be stopped. Based on its logic the phone company could be liable under conspiracy charges if a serial killer used the phone book to locate their victims.

[Gregslover]

Google and The Pirate Bay are both search engines, but the heart of the matter is that they focus on retrieving different kinds of information. <br /> <br />Google, on the other hand, does offer users the possibility to add an URL to the URLs it indexes, but provides no options for directly influencing or commenting on search results. <br /> <br />A major technical difference is that The Pirate Bay operates a so-called tracker. <br /> <br />Google is a service that makes the available information on the World Wide Web retrievable without interfering with the information as such, whereas the Pirate Bay provides a framework for file-sharers who use it to track down files uploaded by their peers (indexing, .torrent hosting, tracking). <br /> <br />To put it more strongly: Google's corporate mission is to make all available information on the Internet retrievable. This philosophy is reflected by Google users, who search the Internet for every conceivable kind of info. By contrast, The Pirate Bay only focusses on file-sharing in general and file-sharing of copyrighted material in particular. Even though the defence argued that many of the files retrieved via the Pirate Bay are in fact legal, TPB users are interested primarily in sharing copyrighted material. The Pirate Bay (indirectly) encourages this illegal behaviour by supplying the aforementioned framework for uploading, hosting and rating .torrents. <br /> <br />By targeting and catering to a specific niche, The Pirate Bay proves to be structurally different from Google. Google acts as an access provider, offering technical facilities to search the Internet without 'messing with the message', so to speak. The Pirate Bay seems to be an amalgam of a highly specialised search engine and a social platform, the actual use of which revolves mainly around sharing copyrighted works. <br /> <br />Much more: http://futureofcopyright.com/index.php?page=news&#38;id=313

[madeinttown]

Google allows you to do...<br /><br />[some movie] filetype:torrent<br /><br />So if the pirate bay also allowed you to search for HTML files, would they become 'legal'?

[Hunnter2k3]

Exactly madeintown, it is very very easy to google for torrents by filetype.<br />Google and TPB are the same, indexers of links to content. <br />In fact, Google are technically WORSE than TPB since they CACHE content, if they cache a website that has copyright notices on it, the site owner can sue. (and it has happened in the past)<br /><br />Yes, TPB did encourage piracy (it IS in the name), but quite a large chunk of it was legal material too. (and is one of the reasons i use it, actually, i haven't torrented, illegally, a single song, film or game, set of pictures, e-books or whatever)<br /><br />The main reason a large chunk of people pirate isn't for the freebies, it is because it is easier.<br />P2P allows you to download files over a large period of time without having to worry about your connection. <br />If these media giants weren't such stuck-up people, they'd adapt to the web (like some have already).<br />Until then, they will continue to lose money, and it is entirely their fault for refusing to change.<br />It is like refusing to get out a house on fire, you're going to get burned regardless of how many times you repeat "it will go away".<br />They will have to change one day, and the sooner they do it the better, for them and us.

[madeinttown]

There are plenty of examples of legal torrent use. Unfortunately, there is an assumption (or so it seems) that torrents are used for illegal purposes only. World of Warcraft (Blizzard) distributes patches to millions of players through a torrent.

[MadLyb]

While I am no fan of the MPAA (or the RIAA for that matter), the reality is that the vast, vast majority of users of these sites are sharing copyrighted material and the only difference between walking into Walmart and walking out with the disc is they don't have enough security to deter you. <br /> <br />In the end, you are stealing and when they do finally catch up with you, don't come whining to the web.

[Wickedashtray]

and the record and movie industries haven't stolen and screwed consumers over (not to mention the musicians they purport to be "protecting"? Just the fact that they are lined up with the RIAA/MPAA shows them to be what they are, monopolistic. They are attempting to keep an outmoded business model alive rather than do what it takes to make money in the era of digital downloads. They want to keep selling plastic discs and people don't want them. Its been shown time and time again that people WILL pay for movies and music as long as they can get it in the format they want without draconian DRM in place. You can't make something that is infinitely re-producible and try to make it artificially scarce. Either they can get their sh*t together or be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

[MadLyb]

Sorry Wickedashtray, their behavior, while reprehensible does not justify theft. Don't buy their products, let your lawmakers know your displeasure, but don't sink to their level. <br /> <br />I completely agree about the DRM, especially when they try to rewrite the ground rules for fair use established during the VHS wars. If I buy it, I should be able to play it on any device, any time and any where. Otherwise, I am just renting the content. <br /> <br />And FYI, I like the plastic discs. In fact, I have several thousand CD's. When there is a true digital equivalent, not compressed junk, I'll buy in.

[mectron]

(c) infringment IS NOT STEALING. and every thing must be done to hurt the MPAA as much as possible. but the fact is, buying a DVD movie or even going to the movies it a CRIME in most country, as supporting organise crime is agains the LAW.

[tudza]

Solutions to this problem have existed for years. Distributed anonymous networks for sharing of news and information.<br /><br />Freenet is an old choice and still going<br /><br />OneSwarm is a new choice and worth looking at.

[mectron]

the MPAA as commited so many crimes agains humanity, that any other company whould have been shutdown decades ago. the thrue is, the MPAA as no legal reason to exist PERIOD. they never ever release any proof that whould have been accepted in a NON BRIBED court of law. <br /> <br />The MPAA only reason to exist is to STEAL money from anyone they can, as the business model of the ones they represents is no longuer viable, they think that stealing outright from consumers is the way to go. <br /> <br />the MPAA only stand up because of the enormous amonth of bribe money used to buy out court of law (and even whole country like sweden) <br /> <br />everything must be done to destroy the MPAA once and for all. (that whould be a nice way for Barrak Obanana to prove he is such a "good" president and not just a puppet)

[scottybennett]

This is a tough one. For people who can afford to buy movies and programs (like me) have no hesitation about throwing a cracker to the developers of the software. Companies as a rule will buy a product if its decent. However trying to slug a starving uni student $200 to buy a program is wrong. In the case of movies the quality of the downloaded ones is crap at best. In reality they just give a preview of there screening. <br /><br />Come Friday night I would rather be going to the movies with a girl I can hug then sitting at home for my torrent to download. Maybe I can download torrents while I go to the flicks :S <br /><br />www.bdd.net.au