market freeleech pot reached 100% yet again, so FL enabled for a week.. Enjoy

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For many years torrent sites were the go-to destination for most movie and TV-show pirates. However, new data shows that this is no longer the case. The vast majority of unauthorized videos are now consumed through pirate streaming sites, good for more than 57 billion visits during last year alone. A decade ago online video streaming was still a relatively new phenomenon. YouTube had just celebrated its first anniversary and Netflix hadn’t even rolled out its streaming service. The piracy landscape also looked quite different at the time. Streaming sites were pretty much non-existent and the vast majority of all movie and TV-show piracy was torrent related. This has drastically changed in recent years. According to a new report published by piracy tracking outfit MUSO, streaming sites have taken over as the prime source of video piracy. New figures released publicly this week are part of the company’s annual report, which shows that nearly three quarters of all movie and TV-show traffic now goes to streaming sites. The data from MUSO covers visits to 14,000 of the largest global piracy websites from 226 countries. In total, the company recorded 141 billion visits to pirate sites last year. More than half of these visits relate to video piracy, which includes movies and TV-shows. The vast majority of these, 57.84 billion (74%), are visits to pirate streaming sites. According to MUSO, there is a clear transition away from P2P sites and services to streaming. This can in part be explained by improved Internet connectivity across the globe. Despite the availability of legal services, the United States tops the list of video pirates, representing 12% of total traffic, which is good for nearly 10 billion visits. Torrent site traffic is slowly declining, for video content at least. Roughly 17% of the traffic went to torrent sites, and MUSO reported a clear downward trend during 2015. Direct download sites account for 8% of video piracy visits, which is relatively stable. The data further reveals that both streaming pirates and torrent users predominantly use desktop machines to visit these sites, 72 and 77 percent respectively. This means that mobile piracy remains relatively small. Visits to streaming sites by device (Muso.com) The movie and TV-show figures are in line with the overall trend MUSO revealed earlier, where pirates move away from torrent sites to other distribution platforms. “Piracy audiences are becoming better connected, more tech savvy, and know what they want, which is why so many of them have chosen to stream infringing content, rather than download it illegally,” MUSO’s CCO Christopher Elkins says. Overall, MUSO’s report concludes that the piracy ecosystem is rapidly changing. It will be interesting to see how the reported traffic trends develop during the years to come. source :https://torrentfreak.com/streaming-sites-dominate-movie-and-tv-show-piracy-160727/

20th Century Fox has accused MegaUpload owner of breaching a freeze on his assets that had been imposed after the infamous raid in 2012. The movie studio claimed in the New Zealand High Court that Kim Dotcom took a $154,000 loan from his lawyers on behalf of a trust for his children.In January 2012, law enforcement officers raided MegaUpload and its operators in several locations, seeking to freeze their considerable assets. As a result, dozens of millions of dollars were seized in several jurisdictions. Over the past 4 years, Dotcom and his lawyers have been trying to have funds released. In most cases, the NZ courts have been receptive and granted Dotcom access to considerable sums of money. However, this might have been insufficient for Dotcom.Now one of his main legal adversaries claims that Kim breached the terms of the asset freeze by taking a loan from his lawyers on behalf of a trust for his children. In response, Dotcom explained that the loan was a new asset not covered by the original freezing order. Indeed, the entrepreneur has been free to generate new income since the raid. In addition, the court awarded him $128,000 per month to live on, including $60,000 for mansion rent, $25,000 for staff and security, and $11,000 for grocery.In the meantime, Dotcom’s battles continue: for example, following an extradition hearing lasting several weeks, the NZ court ruled that Kim Dotcom and his colleagues could be extradited to the US to face several charges. Of course, an appeal was immediately filed, and the hearing is scheduled to take place in a few weeks time.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, citizens refusing to answer questions in the 2016 census (scheduled for 9 August) related to privacy concerns over retention of their personal data may face fines. The Bureau was going to retain name and address information to create a relevant statistical picture of Australia. However, privacy and civil rights groups criticized these plans, as they allegedly constitute a serious invasion of privacy and put personal information of people at risk. The retention of such information provides an enormous amount of personal data. Apparently, the Australian Bureau of Statistics failed to explain the changes, so the rights groups called on it to reverse the decision on the way the personal information will now be stored. As a result, there are concerns about the potential boycott of the census on privacy grounds. In the meantime, the lawyers point out that failing or refusing to answer a question in the census can be a punishable offence if a person receives a direction to complete a form. The maximum penalty is a $180 fine per question, but the refusal to answer several questions in the form could significantly increase the fine. The Australian Bureau of Statistics admitted that for the 2011 census, there were about 1,300 notices of direction issued and 78 prosecution actions approved. The civil rights and privacy groups also pointed out that there are concerns over how securely that information would be stored and whether it could be provided to third parties. The problem is that the government could make regulations in the future to allow information from the census to be disclosed to someone else, even despite the law preventing the disclosure of information if it can enable identification of a person. Other media reports reveal that the proposal originally was to collect the names and addresses for an indefinite period, but the Australian statistician recently explained that he was going to permanently destroy the name and address information by 2020. According to the official, the names and addresses would be removed from other personal household data and stored in a separate database in order to ensure an additional protection.

Canadian police revealed they charged a woman who allegedly fired a pellet gun at Pokémon Go players from the rooftop of her home. According to witnesses, the 29-year-old woman fired at least 4 shots from the roof of a 2-story building, although no players were injured. Apparently, part of the street in the town of Newmarket had been marked in the game as a “gym”, where players gather to challenge each other. It was not revealed how many players were on the street that night, but it is known that the area has attracted them by the dozens. According to police, the woman was arrested without incident. She was then charged with assault with a weapon and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, where each charge carries a maximum penalty of ten years jail time. As all of you know, Pokémon Go has enjoyed an unexpected success from Spain to Australia and doubled the value of Nintendo Co Ltd since the game’s launch in the US. Players use mobile devices to search for virtual Pokémon characters that pop up at various places, including restaurants, museums and other places, and score points in a number of ways, including capturing the Pokémon characters with a flick of a finger on their smartphone screen. We must add that Pokémon Go was also to blame for many car accidents and mishaps stemming from distracted players. The Canadian police revealed that the officers have received many calls from concerned citizens about people playing Pokémon Go. Although there’s nothing illegal in playing it, players should be careful not to trespass – for example, two youths unaware of their surroundings made an illegal border crossing into the US when playing Pokémon Go a few days ago.

When it comes to choosing a Virtual Private Network or VPN as it is commonly known, many users find it hard to determine which one is best for them. To help solve your problems, a reddit user ThatOnePrivacyGuy created a VPN comparison spreadsheet of 125 large VPN providers on the web. This VPN comparison is also published on Lifehacker,PC Tech Magazine, Gizmodo and other websites The sheet is packed with major features of VPN: - Jurisdiction of every VPN company (offshore jurisdiction is OK, U.S. jurisdiction is NOT GOOD) - Based in a “fourteen eyes” country? If VPN providers is located in "fourteen eyes" list - avoid them! 14 countries that like to spy and compare notes on each others citizens - Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, US, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden. - Does VPN provider log any data (Traffic, DNS, IP addresses)? The Best VPNs don't log user activity. - Does VPN block BitTorrent or other protocols? - Does VPN provider accept anonymous payments via Bitcoin? The Best VPNs accept anyonymous payments. - Does VPN require user personal information? The good VPNs needs email of the user only. No first name, last name, addresss and etc. - Free Trial Available? The good VPNs have a free trial period to test it. - How many devices can be connected to VPN simultaneously? - Price - Supported Protocols, OS, devices and many other. The full VPN comparison list is available on Google Docs here. Why do you need VPN while torrenting? VPN is a tool that hides your IP address and your identity, it encrypts traffic and has no logging, so, your IP address will never be revealed and you will be 100% anonymous while torrenting. Government or your ISP can't track your activity. No more any copyright infringement notices from your ISP and government agencies! With a VPN, you are free to download any files you need without any risk. As you have already known, ExtraTorrent's Best VPN choice for Torrenting is Trust.Zone VPN. Trust.Zone has founded by the part of ExtraTorrent community and it cares about safety of ET members and every downloader. It's a tool that hides your IP address and your identity, it encrypts traffic and has no logging, so, your IP address will never be revealed and you will be 100% anonymous while torrenting. Government or your ISP can't track your activity. No more any copyright infringement notices from your ISP and government agencies! With a VPN, you are free to download any files you need without any risk. Now, you can compare ExtraTorrent's recommended Trust.Zone VPN with other VPNs - according to the VPN comparison chart made by independent source.

James Cameron says that the key to containing movie piracy is preserving the theater experience as something special but his wife, Gale Anne Hurd, is a little more militant. The producer of The Terminator and Aliens says torrent site sharing is not as it seems, with operators making "billions". With blockbusters including Avatar, Titanic, Terminator (1&2) and Aliens under his belt, James Cameron is without doubt one of the most successful and respected filmmakers of modern times. While promoting the 30th anniversary of “Aliens” at Comic-Con last week, Cameron and his wife Gale Anne Hurd (who produced the movie) spoke to Variety on a number of movie industry issues. Among them were the potentially intertwined topics of Napster co-founder Sean Parker’s Screening Room project and, of course, the thorny debate over Internet piracy. While Screening Room sounds exciting to some, Cameron does not share the sentiment. He believes that having first-run movies in the home will stop people heading off to the cinema, the place where filmmakers can really showcase their art and take the fight to piracy. “The biggest hedge against piracy is still the sanctity of the viewing experience in a movie theater — when it comes to movies,” he says. “With ‘The Walking Dead’ or something like that, that’s not what you’re selling, but if we’re talking about movies and theatrical exhibition, keeping it great, making it a special experience, is still the biggest hedge against [piracy].” Interestingly, Cameron also says that even if piracy somehow became legal and download speeds were drastically improved, viewing content outside the theatrical setting would still come up short. “You’re still watching [movies] on a small platform, and it’s not that social experience,” he explains. The notion that innovation is the key to dealing with piracy is a belief that Cameron has held for a number of years. Back in 2010 the filmmaker was basking in the glory of Avatar making more than $2.6 billion at the box office, despite pirate copies being available online. The sci-fi movie later went on to become the most pirated movie of all time, and the most successfultoo. But without offering something different, something unique, the movie industry could face the same threat as the music industry did, Cameron warns. “Just collectively the industry needs to know if we fail at creating a premium immersive experience in the theater, then the Napster-like downloading phenomenon will destroy the industry,” Cameron says. “You won’t be able to afford to make a movie like ‘Avatar’ or ‘Transformers’ or ‘Captain America’ or any of these big films. The economics will no longer make sense. And you simply won’t have them in any format or platform.” But while Cameron talks innovation, his producer wife Gale Anne Hurd cautions that those sharing content online might be doing so with rose-tinted glasses. “‘File Sharing’ sounds like a good thing. It’s file stealing,” she told Variety. “I’ve just seen the figures — there’s money to be made in it and that’s not what people are thinking about. If they go to a torrent site or whatever, [the site’s operators] are making money through advertising.” While that isn’t anything new to most file-sharers, Hurd also attacks the driving force behind many sharing platforms – the community’s idea that by uploading content to peers they’re spreading the enjoyment. “So it’s not like, ‘Oh, your friend is helping you out’,” she says. “There’s billions that people are making. The more that’s siphoned away because people are like, ‘Oh, I’ll just wait and I’ll stream it and I don’t even have to pay to stream it from a legitimate source,’ that is making it so much tougher on the exhibitors,” Hurd concludes. Only time will tell whether projects such as Screening Room will be able to co-exist with the theatrical experience. If done well, however, both should be able to chip away at piracy – if the forecasts of Cameron and Fanning are to be believed. source:https://torrentfreak.com/james-cameron-theater-experience-key-to-containing-piracy-160727/

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The French court decided that Google and Bing don’t have to automatically filter "torrent" related searches to curb piracy. In the case filed by the local music industry group SNEP, the court decided that such a filter would be too broad, ineffective, and target legitimate content.The music industry group, representing three French artists, demanded automated search engine filters from Google and Microsoft, claiming that when paired with the artist names, “torrent” related searches link to pirated material. In order to fight piracy, they demanded to design and implement a filter that would be able to block results for the keyword “torrent,” along with websites containing the same word in their domain name.However, the High Court of Paris decided against SNEP. In their defense, Microsoft had warned that such filtering system would be imprecise, disproportionate and inefficient, and the court agreed. In its ruling, the court acknowledged that the law permits far-reaching anti-piracy measures, but pointed out that it’s also necessary to preserve the rights of individual Internet users, such as freedom of expression and communication.In addition, the court recognized that the word “torrent” has many legitimate uses, and so does the BitTorrent protocol, which by itself is a neutral communication technology. This is why blocking everything “torrent”-related would lead to censoring legal content as well. The case against Google was dismissed on the grounds that it would only protect the interests of 3 artists, while the preventive anti-piracy measures have to protect a wider range of copyright holders under French law.

It turned out that covert photos taken of thousands of women on beaches, public transport and other places have been shared to two Twitter hashtags over the past 6 years with apparent impunity. Twitter users point out that the images mostly focus on the breasts and buttocks, but women’s faces are also visible in most cases. Some victims appear to be underage. When one of the Canadian women came across the hashtags a couple months ago, she immediately referred them to Twitter’s @Support account. However, she didn’t receive a response – moreover, any attempts to report the accounts tweeting the hashtags were met with error messages. So far, none of those accounts seem to have been suspended. In other words, Twitter allows photos of non-consenting women and minors to be posted to these hashtags. According to the research conducted by a social media analytics company, about 35,000 posts and retweets have been posted to those hashtags, with the spike of activity in April 2016. Overwhelming majority of accounts posting and retweeting on these hashtags belong to underage men – 57% of them are American, 15% British and 12% Mexicans. A whole underground community for trading these photos was revealed: for example, some accounts are restricted to photos taken in specific neighborhoods or public places, such as supermarkets. One account makes an active appeal to its 100k+ followers for “creepshots” that are “good enough to tweet or post” on its external website. While laws vary from country to country, in most cases people are allowed to take photos of others in public without their consent. Twitter’s ToS also state the platform is not liable for content posted to the site, but at the same time its rules around abusive behavior and private information read that users are prohibited to post intimate photos or videos taken or distributed without the subject’s consent. According to industry experts, Twitter often does not seem to take the complaints of the victims of harassment seriously, or simply fails to respond. Even if the infringing accounts are blocked, the users can easily create new accounts. In response, Twitter promised to review its “hateful-conduct policy” to ban more types of abusive behavior and allow more types of reporting.

Although MegaUpload and its founder Kim Dotcom have been intensively discussed in the media over the past few years, not everyone knows that Dotcom also had other successful ventures in his portfolio, including MegaVideo. Dotcom’s file-hosting service operated in a way similar to YouTube and allowed users to upload video. The ad-supported website was free to use for any video up to 72 minutes long, but content of longer duration required a paid subscription to watch in full without waits. MegaVideo sank 4 years ago together with MegaUpload, but that didn’t stop Italian TV group from suing for copyright infringement. As a result, an Italian court has just ordered the defunct service to pay $13.4m in damages because it reportedly failed to respond to takedown notices. The interesting thing here is that the court decided that the takedown notices listing only TV show titles without URLs were sufficient for the platform to take action. In addition, the court also ruled that video categorization and ad placement undermined the safe harbor. Representatives of MegaVideo point out that the recent court ruling can be a real cause for concern for other companies operating in the same field. The most attention is attracted by the issue of the URL-free takedown notices, because both in the US and across Europe, takedown notices must be specific about the content to be removed. However, the Italian court decided otherwise, and this presents a real danger for service providers. The court ruling didn’t explain why the copyright owners couldn’t provide URLs in the takedown notices and therefore contradicts US caselaw in cases which allow service providers to ignore takedown requests that do not contain a specific link.

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Blocking torrent and streaming sites is a regular occurrence in many countries but the practice is now extending to other areas. Following a complaint by Russian news site Gazeta, the Moscow City Court has ordered a news portal to be blocked by ISPs after it 'pirated' a tourism article. While countries like China have a dubious reputation for online censorship, millions of Internet users are now reluctantly becoming accustomed to sites being blocked on copyright grounds. The practice is present in scattered countries across Europe but is most prevalent in the UK where more than a thousand sites are now being rendered inaccessible by regular means. Most of the complaints originate from traditional copyright holders such as movie, TV show and recording labels, but a new threat has just emerged in Russia for the very first time. Launched in 1999, Gazeta.ru is one of Russia’s leading Internet news resources and the 68th most-visited site overall. The platform enjoys an impressive 11 million readers each month but like many others it claims to have a problem with people republishing its content without permission. Back in March, Gazeta published an article about tourism in Azerbaijan. The piece was popular with Gazeta readers but other commercial outfits were also attracted to the content. One of them, Story-media.ru, later reproduced the Gazeta article in full, without obtaining permission from the copyright holder. In the world of news this is hardly a rare event. Many outlets find their articles being reproduced elsewhere on the Internet without permission and within seconds of publication. However, Gazeta decided that enough was enough and decided to fight back. Using the same copyright complaints system that has been used countless times by movie studios and record labels since its 2013 introduction, Gazeta filed a case at the Moscow City Court. Categorizing the tourism article as a “literary work” (literary works were added to Russia’s anti-piracy law last May), Gazeta owner Rambler & Co demanded action against Story-media.ru for the unauthorized reproduction of its copyright work. According to Vedomosti, lawyers for Rambler & Co argued that the company “consistently fights the illegal placement of [copyrighted] content” and since the operators of Story-media.ru hide their identities (WHOIS is anonymous), the site should be blocked. The Moscow City Court found the argument persuasive and in response ordered Russian ISPs to immediately block Story-media.ru. The court order describes the injunction as “an interim measure” designed to protect the “intellectual rights to the literary work.” While plenty of torrent, streaming and linking sites have been blocked under the same process, this is believed to be the first use of Russia’s anti-piracy law to block a news resource following a complaint from a publisher over a written article. Gazeta has previously taken action against a site that published an infographic without permission, resulting in the block of media site go2life.net, Vedomosti reports. Story-media.ru now needs to respond to the Gazeta complaint but it is unclear whether it will do so. The site is currently offli

KickassTorrents may be down, but the KAT 'family' is still very much alive. A group of site admins and moderators have started a new community, bringing back many users of the site under the same roof. The new home doesn't offer any torrents, however, and it's still doubtful if the site will ever be restored to its full glory. With an active community and millions of regular visitors, KickassTorrents was much more than a site to leech the latest torrents from. Many considered it to be their virtual home. This ended abruptly last week, following the arrest of its alleged founder in Poland. A criminal complaint from the U.S. Government revealed that the entire operation had been compromised by the Department of Homeland Security. Although not all domain names and servers were seized, the site quickly disappeared and after nearly a week there is still no sign of life. At least, not at the original site. Over the past few days, several members of the KAT team have regrouped in an effort to get the community part of the site back up. Since then they have launched Katcr.co, which hosts a forum where several staffers are present. Speaking on behalf of the KAT-team that’s left, Mr.Black says that the criminal investigation won’t be the end of the community. “We need to remember that Kickass Torrents is not simply about uploading, the heart and soul of KAT is our members, which are family and family is important as we all know. Nothing can ever take that away and no matter what happens we will not let our community down.” “We guarantee that KAT will continue in one form or another and we will come back stronger than ever,” Mr.Black adds. The forum, created by Mr.Prairi3DoG, has already gathered thousands of visitors over the past few days and continues to grow. While many of the original team members are present, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the original site will be restored as well. KAT forum TorrentFreak has learned that remaining “KAT team” doesn’t have access to the original code. They are mainly people who kept the site clean and in order, in the role of moderator or administrator, and who have no contact with the alleged site owner. However, if the “owners” of the site would like to make a comeback, they will have the support of the KAT team that’s now trying to keep the community alive. “Should the business owners choose to revive KAT then they will have our full support,” Mr.Black says. He further notes that the site was taken down “under dubious circumstances” and calls the charges against the alleged operator “murky” at best. “No copyrighted material was ever stored on Kickass Torrents and the site was fully DMCA compliant,” Mr.Black says. KAT spirit is still alive For now, the forum will give estranged KAT users a place to get together once again. However, many are also still looking for alternatives, with various KAT mirrors growing in popularity. The KAT team has noticed this as well, but warns that none of these are connected to the old team, urging people to proceed with caution. “Please be aware that there is no legitimate fully-working KAT site available so be cautious and never attempt to login to any fake sites that may appear online,” Mr.Black warns. Meanwhile, the alleged operator of KickassTorrents faces extradition to the United States. As far as we know he still remains in Poland, but the authorities haven’t announced any new information since last week, while the court case remains sealed. source: https://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-community-resurrects-without-torrents-160725/

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After years of legal disputes, leading Russian social networking site vKontakte has struck a deal with Universal Music to license content uploaded to the platform by its users. TorrentFreak caught up with vKontakte CEO Boris Dobrodeyev to discover how the deal will help end accusations of piracy and remove vKontakte from US trade blacklists. After years of being branded one of the world’s worst Internet piracy facilitators, last week social networking giant vKontakte took another important step towards making peace with rightsholders. Parent company Mail.ru signed a licensing agreement with Universal Music and United Music Agency which will see music and video content appear legally on vKontakte, Classmates (Odnoklassniki) and My World, the three most-visited social networking sites in Russia. With all copyright-related disputes now settled with Universal Music, the deal effectively transforms bitter conflict into cooperation, opening up opportunities for music sales development in a notoriously difficult region. To find out more about the deal, this week TF caught up with VKontakte CEO Boris Dobrodeyev, who told us he’s optimistic for the future. TF: Can you explain how the music licensing system with Universal Music will work? BD: In accordance with the terms of the agreement, we cannot disclose the specific licensing provisions. However, we can say that the licensing agreements cover use of content on existing and planned new services on all of Mail.Ru Group’s social networks: VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and My World. TF: What happens to the thousands/millions of ‘pirate’ tracks that are stored already on VKontakte? Do these effectively become legal or will Universal Music be supplying new content? BD: The term “piracy” is not applicable to User Generated Content (UGC) services. Our position, which we have successfully defended in legal disputes, is that we do not distribute pirate content. VKontakte’s content is user-generated, and so the rights holders’ requests were directed to them. From our side, we do everything that we can to protect the rights of the holders and remove content that violates their ownership rights. Now that VKontake has signed the respective agreements with the major music companies, it is implementing substantial measures to identify the ownership of user content on the basis of the original files provided by the rights holders. VKontakte’s new services will be created using original content from the labels (including Warner, Sony and Universal). BORIS DOBRODEYEV, VKONTAKTE CEO TF: Is VKontakte obliged to end all music piracy on its platform now, or just for the recoding labels it has struck a deal with? BD: We would reiterate that the term “piracy” is not correct when talking about UGC services. Following significant efforts to license music content, the overwhelming majority of music by global artists on VK is completely legal. With regard to music rights holders that have not yet signed an agreement with VK, at the very least they are able to use the existing procedures and technology in place to remove content and prevent it from being re-uploaded. It goes without saying that we also intend to sign corresponding agreements with these other rights holders in the near future. We would add that many users and artists voluntarily upload their own music to VK in order to increase their popularity. TF: Will fingerprinting technology or any other anti-piracy measures implemented? BD: Yes, we intend to use a unique content identification system, which we developed in-house, and is similar to the technologies used in Audible Magic and Gracenote Content ID. We will work together with the rights holders to continuously improve this technology in line with the development of the IT industry in general. Moving forward Of course, after years of copyright disputes vKontakte’s reputation in the United States has been somewhat sullied, largely due to rightsholders lobbying the United States Trade Representative to add the site to its Notorious Markets list. Dobrodeyev informs TF that it’s now time to move forward. “We certainly hope that VKontakte will be removed from ‘piracy’ lists following the settlements and taking into account the enormous amount of work that the network has undertaken in this area,” he concludes. Mail.ru and its subsidiaries now have licensing agreements in place with the three leading recording labels – Universal Music Group (UMG), Warner Music and Sony Music. Together they’ll hope to make inroads and indeed profit from a difficult and largely untapped Russian music market. source :https://torrentfreak.com/vkontakte-ceo-time-to-remove-us-from-pirate-blacklists-160724/

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After a decade of lawsuits, the iconic torrent site IsoHunt has settled its last remaining legal dispute. Gary Fung, the Canadian founder of the defunct search engine, has agreed to pay a $66 million settlement to the local music industry group and is glad he can move on with his life. After years of legal battles, isoHunt and its founderGary Fung are free at last. Today, Fung announced that he has settled the last remaining lawsuit with Music Canada, formerly known as the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA). “After 10 long years, I’m happy to announce the end of isoHunt’s and my lawsuits,” Fung says, noting that he now owes the Canadian music group $66 million. The multi-million dollar agreement follows an earlier settlement with the MPAA, for $110 million, on paper. While most site owners would be devastated, Fung has long moved beyond that phase and responds rather sarcastically. “And I want to congratulate both Hollywood and CRIA on their victories, in letting me off with fines of $110m and $66m, respectively. Thank you!” he notes, adding that he’s “free at last”. The consent order (pdf) signed by the Supreme Court of British Columbia prohibits isoHunt’s founder from operating any file-sharing site in the future. It further requires Fung to pay damages of $55 million and another $10 million in aggravated punitive damages. The final million dollars is issued to cover the costs of the lawsuit. Although isoHunt shut down 2013, it took more than two years for the last case to be finalized. The dispute initially began in the last decennium, when the Canadian music industry went after several prominent torrent sites. In May 2008, isoHunt received a Cease and Desist letter from the CRIA in which they demanded that isoHunt founder Gary Fung should take the site offline. If Fung didn’t comply, the CRIA said it would pursue legal action, and demand $20,000 for each sound recording the site has infringed. A similar tactic worked against Demonoid, but the isoHunt founder didn’t back down so easily. Instead, he himself filed a lawsuit against the CRIA asking the court to declare the site legal. That didn’t work out as isoHunt’s founder had planned, and several years later the tables have been turned entirely, with the defeat now becoming final. While the outcome won’t change anything about isoHunt’s demise, Fung is proud that he was always able to shield its users from the various copyright groups attacking it. No identifiable user data was shared at any point. Fung is also happy for the support the site’s users have given him over the years. “I can proudly conclude that I’ve kept my word regarding users’ privacy above. To isoHunt’s avid users, it’s worth repeating since I shutdown isoHunt in 2013, that you have my sincerest thanks for your continued support,” Fung notes. “Me and my staff could not have done it for more than 10 years without you, and that’s an eternity in internet time. It was an interesting and challenging journey for me to say the least, and the most profound business learning experience I could not expect.” The Canadian entrepreneur can now close the isoHunt book for good and move on to new ventures. One of the projects he just announced is a mobile search tool called “App to Automate Googling” AAG for which he invites alpha testers. The original isoHunt site now redirects to MPAA’s “legal” search engine WhereToWatch. However, the name and design lives on via the clone site IsoHunt.to, which still draws millions of visitors per month – frustrating for the MPAA and Music Canada. source :https://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-founder-settles-cria-66-million/

Welcome to I-H and enjoy your stay.

Welcome to I-H and enjoy your stay.