isoHunt, one of the most prominent torrent sites which has been around for a long while, is now being forced to shut down. The website has been embroiled in a number of lawsuits and as part of the settlement with MPAA, site’s owner Gary Fung has agreed to shut down the site.
MPAA launched a lawsuit against isoHunt back in 2006. The lawsuit seems to have come to conclusion now that Fung has decided to settle. The terms of the settlement not only include shutting down the site but also paying MPAA some $110 million.
MPAA had threatened that if the case went to court, it would force isoHunt to pay up a lot more than that. Celebrating the victory, MPAA CEO Chris Dodd stated, “Today’s settlement is a major step forward in realizing the enormous potential of the Internet as a platform for legitimate commerce and innovation.”
Fung, on the other hand, posted a rather sentimental goodbye post on the site. While bidding goodbye to the millions of users who have been downloading torrents through the site, he said, “One would think we the people of the Internet are losing to the copyright cartels, but I think different. I saw solidarity against tyranny in protests against SOPA, which did not pass (happy coincident that Internet Freedom Day, Jan. 18 when SOPA failed, is so close to our anniversary). I see musicians and filmmakers slowly but surely warming up to new possibilities of Internet distribution and promotion, abandoning notions of “1 download = 1 lost sale” in the physical age.”
Interestingly, Fang has also announced that he will be launching isoHunt Spotlight, which will essentially be a new service bringing together creators and consumers of different sorts of content.
Explaining the service, Fang stated, “What is Spotlight exactly? Think Kickstarter, Netflix, Spotify, Gamefly, Kindle Owners’ Lending Library rolled into one, with global licensing from day one that only makes sense for the Internet. We are still in the planning stages of this thing, so we can use your thought and help in making this happen.”
Courtesy: TNW
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