IsoHunt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| URL | http://www.isohunt.com |
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| Type of site | BitTorrent and P2P search engine |
| Registration | Free |
| Owner | Gary Fung |
| Created by | Gary Fung |
| Launched | January 2003 |
| Current status | Online |
- The correct title of this article is isoHunt. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
isoHunt is a major BitTorrent index with over 585,000 torrents in its database and over 82 million peers from indexed torrents [1]. With 7.4 million unique visitors as of May 2006, isoHunt is one of the most popular BitTorrent search engines. Thousands of torrents are added to it each day as well as deleted for a multitude of reasons. On average, isoHunt users perform over 40 million unique searches per month.
The website's founder, Gary Fung, is currently being sued for copyright infringement. On January 16, 2007, isoHunt was taken offline; stating that "Lawyers from our primary ISP decided to pull our plug without any advance notice". After a major hardware upgrade[2], the site resumed normal operation by January 22, although experiencing several subsequent brief periods of downtime due to server changes.
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[edit] History
isoHunt was founded in January 2003 by Gary Fung. Its name is derived from the term ISO image, used to describe a 1:1 soft copy of a CD or DVD, a format often used in peer-to-peer file distribution, for Linux system images for example. iso-Hunt refers to the hunt, or search, of large files on peer-to-peer networks.
[edit] Legal
[edit] Correspondence with the MPAA
Selected items of email correspondence between isoHunt and the MPAA have been posted on the isoHunt forums. [3]
[edit] Lawsuit
In February 2006 it was announced that the MPAA had launched legal proceedings against isoHunt, TorrentBox, TorrentSpy, ed2k-it, and several other BitTorrent indexing/tracker sites, alleging that these sites facilitate copyright infringement. This is despite the fact that similar results can be obtained by using generic search engines such as Google; the validity of the MPAA's case is thus arguable under United States copyright law, specifically, DMCA "Safe Harbor" provisions. On February 28, 2006 a lawsuit was filed against Gary Fung in the District Court of Southern New York. Fung has shown no sign of voluntarily closing isoHunt and stands to oppose the MPAA on legal grounds.[citation needed] On August 18, 2006, Judge Stanton granted a motion for case transfer from New York to California on the grounds of inconvenienced parties and similar cases already filed in the District Court of Central California.
[edit] DMCA Takedown Notices
isoHunt has a history of complying with DMCA copyright takedown notices, and has worked with various copyright owners in the past, such as the RIAA and Microsoft. Its policy toward the DMCA Copyright Act is detailed on the site.[4]
[edit] Miscellaneous
isoHunt currently offers paid membership which entitles donors to browse the site ad-free. However, unlike many of its peers, registration is not compulsory.
isoHunt also has a strict privacy policy.[5]
[edit] Technical Details
In the beginning of 2007 isohunt has restructured the server setup and bought mostly new hardware for the cluster that operates the site. The cluster has a total of 34 Opteron cores, 70 GB in ram, and 30 hard drives ranging from SATAs to 15k rpm SCSIs.[6]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ isoHunt - World's largest BitTorrent and P2P search engine(Displayed in the main bar)
- ^ isoHunt Forum - Are we faster or slower, now we've moved to Canada?
- ^ isoHunt Forum - Letters from MPAA
- ^ isoHunt DMCA Copyright Policy
- ^ isoHunt Privacy Policy
- ^ Technical Details
[edit] External links
- isoHunt
- isoHunt Forums, with experimental forums for second hand game trading (CD key)
- Letters with the MPAA, a year before their lawsuit
- Announcement and discussion of MPAA's lawsuit
- Gary Fung Slyck News interview
- Gary Fung The National interview by CBC
- BitTorrent site statistics
- MPAA sues newsgroup, P2P search sites - CNET News.com, February 23, 2006
- B.C. man takes on Hollywood in piracy case - CBC May 31 2006
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| Companies | BitTorrent, Inc. |
| Prominent individuals | Bram Cohen • Ashwin Navin • Ludvig Strigeus |
| Technology | Tracker • Client • Super-seeding • Peer exchange • Broadcatching (BT RSS List) |
| Prominent clients (category) | Official BitTorrent Client • ABC • Azureus • BitComet • BitTornado • KTorrent • Transmission • µTorrent • Halite |
| Prominent sites (category) | LokiTorrent • Suprnova.org • The Pirate Bay • AnimeSuki • Demonoid • Mininova • isoHunt • TorrentSpy • Empornium • UKNova |
