isoHunt News

10 years of isoHunt, past and future [71]

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:02:38 GMT

10 years of isoHunt. Jan. 22 to the day, when the domain was registered. When I started isoHunt during engineering school, I truly did not think I'd be working on it for 10 years, but here I am. Napster, Kazaa, Suprnova, LokiTorrent. Big names have come and gone, and the Internet has changed. 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. Ideals of the Free Software movement and Creative Commons will face new challenges with 3D printed copies of physical objects, replicated from copyrightable digital designs. We are moving into the world of science fiction. Will copyright or even money be relics like in Star Trek, where all material scarcity and wants are gone, replicators can make anything needed, and holodecks can create any world imaginable? Too utopian perhaps, but if someone from 100 years ago is to look at technologies we have now, a lot of it maybe construed as magic too.

Without being strictly sentimental with the past or the future, there's a point I'm trying to make. I did not think I'd be working on isoHunt for 10 years, but I have. I'm imagining what the next 10 years should bring. Why am I still working on isoHunt? To quote Breaking Bad, am I "in the empire business", subverting the establishment? No, we are in the culture business. Culture, distilled into digital files, shared by people, on the Internet. In the culture business, there are creators, and there are consumers. In this age of "broadcasting yourself", we are often both creators as well as consumers. And in my ideal world, consumers will share what they want, freely, and creators will be promoted accordingly and compensated fairly. Minimal friction, and minimal middlemen in the way who doesn't help in connecting consumers directly with creators.

I've fought Hollywood's lawsuit for almost 7 years now, it's so ancient it's almost not even worth mentioning. Same goes with CRIA's lawsuit. I'm tired of this squabble and they trying to make me and isoHunt another scapegoat in their crusade of no historic meaning. The only way to move forward is together, with the creators. For the next 10 years, I'm imagining a reboot of isoHunt. From a mostly passive search engine, to a new system where you the consumer can be active participants in bringing creators on board, and you can frictionlessly contribute to the creators. I'm calling this isoHunt Spotlight for now, until we think of a better name. And this will be a new endeavour, a complement to isoHunt the search engine which will continue its mission of indexing any and all torrent links. 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. If we can make such a system of frictionless funding, creating, consuming and sharing happen like I'm imagining, it's going to be beautiful. To get there, we’ll need to bring a lot more creators on board, together.

Oh, and we just passed half a million fans on our Facebook page. Along with the millions of users who have frequented isoHunt the last 10 years, thanks for your support! Cheers to the next 10.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 71

Google: Censorship and Antitrust bully. We need a protest. [74]

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:40:30 GMT

On the news that Google announcing they will downrank sites "with too many valid DMCA takedown notices". Since isoHunt is currently listed as #3 of most noticed sites, that is likely to happen to to us.

But let's get it out of the way that we are crying foul just because we are scared of losing traffic. About 75% of all our traffic are direct traffic, with 21% coming from Google searches (and much of that being searches on "isohunt" and "isohunt.com"). So even if Google takes isoHunt entirely out of their index, we'll survive. Unless Google start censoring isoHunt at the Chrome browser level, but let's not give them any ideas.

What I want to bring to attention about this search algorithm change is Google is no longer the search engine upstart they used to be (for a while now). As Search Engine Land says, Google is now a content distribution company. What's missing on Google's DMCA notices report? Youtube. The by far largest video content website in the world ought to have very high volume of DMCA notices, if not the most, and it's inconspicuously missing from the list. To downrank and censor any website that's not Google's that receives a high number of DMCA notices? Sounds exactly like antitrust to me.

Now, on what is "valid" DMCA notices to warrant Google labeling a site as pirate? Google Legal has already labelled us a "pirate" service before, to prop themselves up as "legit". That is their opinion. What is really wrong with downranking/censoring websites based on "valid" DMCA notices however is that what's valid is simply notices that has not been countered. With millions of links subject to notices, we never bothered countering any DMCA notices on Google (not to mention Google only recently put up their transparency report so there hasn't even been an easy way to review what's been noticed per domain). That does not mean all links under isohunt.com which Google has filtered by notices are valid, just because we haven't countered them. Not any more valid than how Youtube took down NASA's Mars video just because a broadcaster said so. Is what Google/Youtube routinely call valid takedowns valid, like many others before? You tell me. (although to Google's credit, a video of a Canadian urinating on his passport is too good to takedown, unlike a video from Mars)

To complicate matters, we are also a search engine, like Google, not just a regular website. We have our DMCA policy and takedown process, like Google. (ours was electronic by email years ago I might add, when Google was still requiring snail mail) And contrary to popular beliefs, we have plenty of torrent links to non-copyright infringing content, and we'll be adding 1.4M more from the Internet Archive soon. Is it right for Google to downrank or outright censor torrent links to legit, non-infringing content on isoHunt.com (or any other site), just because copyright holders have spammed a million "valid" DMCA notices on our other pages to Google that hasn't been countered? Censorship will never be easier, by DMCA spam.

The media conglomerates failed to pass SOPA, now they are getting in bed with Youtube at the public's expense. I'd point you to Google alternatives like DuckDuckGo (which respects your privacy a lot more to boot), or heck, bing but since everyone google, that's unlikely to go far in practice. While Google already started down this path of censorship with autocorrect before, search ranking based on mere DMCA notices is a line that should not be crossed.

We need a protest against Google censorship and antitrust.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 74

With constitutional freedoms at stake, isoHunt files plead [31]

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 02:44:01 GMT

Freedom of expression on the Internet is under attack. From SOPA in the US, ACTA internationally, and C-11 in Canada, the same theme is apparent on the agenda of copyright industry groups: instead of dealing with actual copyright violators, they want to shut down technologies and internet services that they say will be used by violators. It’s the same alarmist approach that goes back to the VCR and the radio. As the Internet emerges as the de-facto medium of communication, sharing and expression, the control over distribution by copyright industries is threatened. In turn, the constitutional freedom of expression of Canadians and all participants on the Internet is threatened.

Since SOPA, a new term has been coined on this age: the War on Piracy. What it really is is a War on the Internet. In our latest response to CRIA filed in Court, we ask the Supreme Court of BC to adjudicate this crucial issue of balance between the constitutional rights of people on the Internet to communicate, share and search, versus the rights of copyright industries to limit such rights in the corporate interest of protecting and extending copyright. isoHunt urges the court to examine this issue carefully, for the sake of innovations on the Internet, free exchange of culture, and fundamental constitutional freedoms.

Here is an electronic copy of our pleading, filed at the Supreme Court of BC, Canada. The Attorney General has been put on notice of constitutional issues raised.

News:
- http://torrentfreak.com/record-labels-threaten-the-open-internet-isohunt-tells-court-120229/
- http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/t8aef/in_its_case_against_26_major_record_labels_at_bc/ (May 5, 2012) with our comment

Posted by: IH
Comments: 31

Celebrate! 8 Years of isoHunt Torrent Search [38]

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 11:00:24 GMT

It's been 8 years since isoHunt began searching the internet for torrents, almost as long as BitTorrent itself. 8 years since isoHunt began its life, hosted off a cable modem and on my home PC. Since then, isoHunt has grown from a hobby to one of the 200 largest websites on the internet, with users worldwide conducting over 12 million searches per day (or 142 queries every second). We now operate 2 server racks, collocated in 2 separate datacenters, in Canada and in Sweden. I believe we are the oldest, major BitTorrent search engine still in operation since 2003, and perhaps the only one with servers in simultaneous operation in 2 different corners of the world. While we cannot claim zero downtime, we pride ourselves in bringing you the best, fastest and most reliable search results available for BitTorrent files.

All of these give reasons to celebrate. Perhaps especially that during these years, 6.5 years ago we received our letters with the MPAA, and 5.5 years ago they sued. Counting the years, it amazes me really that we've lasted this long. Many other P2P networks and services have failed, legally or financially. We are still fighting our lawsuit in the US with a pending Appeal. A trial by jury is what we asked for, and we can only hope that for the sake of search engine neutrality and your freedom to search that we be granted a fair trial. We'll need your continued support in this. Same goes for our other lawsuit with *cough* Music Canada.

To commemorate 8 years of awesome torrent search, we've designed a new T-shirt. It sports a sleek design that is scientifically proven to make you look thin (as our model at Jinx demonstrates), and with text running vertically that is guaranteed to "turn heads". During beta testing, some of our users have commented that the front design looks like a tie and the "8" looks like an infinity bow tie. This is indeed true! You'll look smarter in it without sweating like a pig wearing actual shirt and tie in the summer. The back design features a working QR code and a barcode used as a design element, generated with the slogan "Freedom to search, Freedom to share". So what are you waiting for, go buy one and spread the isoHunt love! Not convinced? For limited time only (infomercial voice), with the code "IH8YEARS", you'll receive 25% off at checkout. And not only for our T-shirt of awesomeness, the discount applies to every item you buy at Jinx. And I wasn't kidding about the limited time offer, the discount code will expire by August 31. In buying our merchandize, you'll directly contribute to us financially for continued operation of isoHunt, (including our legal costs) and for that we thank you in advance!

Posted by: IH
Comments: 38

Job Posting: Anti-Piracy Programmer [59]

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 23:14:31 GMT

isoHunt is the most comprehensive BitTorrent search engine on the interwebs. It comes as no surprise that losers online share links of copyleft and copyright materials which isoHunt indexes, both in indiscriminate amounts. Each possible infringement from such links are worth tens of thousands of dollars in statutory damage. With 166.2 million files indexed within torrent links on isoHunt, the amount of potential claim is worth TRILLIONS of dollars.

However, the conundrum isoHunt faces is determining who owns copyright over what files are described within torrent files that isoHunt indexes, and what are the wishes of these copyright holders. Is a file's copyright owned by hippies such as Richard Stallman and similar Free Software gang with these ridiculous beards? Or socialist commies such as these filmmakers posting free films and shows at Vodo, (absurd, I know) and similarly free music at Jamendo, and any other sites hosting such so-called copyleft non-sense? Or such copyright holders, whoever they are, hang on to their copyright as they rightfully should and intend on suing any who infringes on their copyright? Afterall, victories in court or settlements are worth more than customers. These copyright holders are our friends and isoHunt seek your expertise in bringing copyright thieves to justice. And profit.

Candidates for a position as Senior Architect and Programmer for Anti-Piracy has the following requirements:

* Semantically determine from names of file listings within close to 7 million .torrents isoHunt indexes, the following: copyright holder of such files, and metadata on the copyright status of such files
* isoHunt do not host or have access to such files (isoHunt can't be a hypocrite and download these files like all the pirates do), so your job it is to determine the above by solely file names
* No master database referencing copyright ownership and status with files shared on P2P networks currently exist, so your job it is to build such a database
* Desired, but not required: to determine names and addresses of pirates participating in the piracy of copyrighted works, for law enforcement purposes (not those owned by copyleft hippies, after having determined copyright status of files). Note that IP addresses does not suffice, even a child can copy out IP addresses of fellow pirates in his BitTorrent client.
* 30+ years experience in C++, Java, Python, Perl, TCP/IP, BitTorrent protocols, and strong magic are required for this job.

Should you qualify, please reply ASAP. Trillions of dollars of profit await, and your compensation will be almost as impressive.

Note: This was mostly a April's Fool joke. Or a parody for any other day.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 59

isoHunt Lite fixes, want feedback [142]

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 03:00:19 GMT

IE6/7 bugs are fixed, and common complaint with dead links is addressed. The title in search results link to the original site which may be down or changed, but the Cached link is the same as the Download .torrent link on regular isoHunt before. Many of you don't seem to realize that, so we made changes to make that cached link more obvious. See http://isohunt.com/lite/#q=ubuntu for an example of the cached links I'm talking about.

True that we have disabled comments in Lite for legal reason, but ratings (with thumbs up, down) are still displayed, and it is factored in in the combined torrent search ranking, which includes seeds/leechers, ratings, search relevance and age. Many of you complain about missing sort and that is really uncalled for, the combined ranking is better in most cases especially with more spam trackers misreporting seeds/leechers stats. This ranking again is the same default ranking used on regular isoHunt which you come to love.

Sort by age for newest torrents is a valid feature missing and if you want this, we'll work on adding sort option for that.

So, if you don't like Lite, tell us why so we can improve it. Complaining that "it sucks" doesn't help. Nobody likes change but sometimes it's necessary, so help us change it for the better with constructive criticism.

New (04/14): Sorting options & table-like attributes formating now on Lite, as you requested
New (04/16): Search suggestions doubling as spell check, bug fixes
Update (11/03): Regular isoHunt interface available again for US with a twist: until we are able to appeal the US court injunction, categories and top searches are disabled. Lite is still available if you want it.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 142

isoHunt Lite test roll out and on rumored keyword filtering [183]

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:18:49 GMT

US users, welcome to the lighter and lightning-fast isoHunt! Although we bring this new search engine to you with a burden from the lawsuit brought by the MPAA, we hope you understand the reason why we are making this change. We are addressing concerns Judge Wilson has expressed over inducing copyright infringement in the United States. Though inducement is never our intention (and we have evidence to support it), with isoHunt Lite we want to affirm publicly that isoHunt's essential function is merely to provide a search engine and a public utility with all the net neutrality it affords and should be afforded.

Despite rumors that we are ordered to filter by keywords for the US, there's only a proposed order, no actual order. Freedom of speech, non-infringing use and technical implementability issues are still being debated in further court briefs. We have not done any keyword filtering and are fighting all we can not to, because we believe search terms are ambiguous by nature, and that any requirement to keyword filter is a violation of freedom of speech and tantamount to censorship. There are many non-infringing uses for BitTorrent technology and we hope you will be able to continue to use isoHunt for these, free of constraints by gaping holes in the dictionary because your search triggered a keyword in a title of one of the million movies that have been produced.

Why would you still use isoHunt, you ask now that it's just like Google and Yahoo, and you can search for torrents with those? While we won't dispute that claim, there's a fundamental difference: On isoHunt Lite you get ranking by constantly updated seeds/leechers and ratings, statistics specific for BitTorrent, in addition to search relevancy and age. A general search engine also do not group as one multiple, identical torrents spread on different websites on the Web. Your continued use of isoHunt will also support our upcoming appeal against the MPAA, and we thank you in advance.

We protest the possibility we may be required by US law in upcoming injunction to keyword filter for US users as it would be censorship. The DMCA mandates with good reason that copyright notice and takedowns requested by copyright holders be done under penalty of perjury with accurate identifcation, with standard practice of links or URLs, not broad mucking with the dictionary. If you want to join us in protest, share this by Tweet, Facebook, etc. and write to Congress. Donation to organizations like the EFF will also help.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 183

Copyright lawsuit update and introducing isoHunt Lite (Beta) [163]

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:39:53 GMT

US Copyright Laws

The US court ruled, in late December 2009, in Summary Judgment that we were liable for secondary copyright infringement, you may have read about it in the news. What you have not heard however is what happened since the status conference in January. The Judge, at the status conference, agreed to provide us after the injunction phase, but before the damages phase, with an interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Before we appeal however, we must undergo injunction motions and that's what we are doing now. Plaintiffs have filed their motion with their proposed measure for injunction a couple of weeks ago. The Plaintiffs proposed injunction and its keyword type filter, in our view, raises serious issues on the balance between freedom of speech, fair use and copyright protectionism. Such keyword filter is also impossible to implement if it's to have any sort of precision, nor can it avoid conflict with fair use cases, free commerce, or extra-territorial law. We have just filed our response in opposition:

http://isohunt.com/img/legal/Fung%20Inj%20Opp&Dec-FINALSTAMPED-noexhibits.pdf

isoHunt Lite

We are in the process of developing isoHunt Lite, a lighter, simpler, and faster version of isoHunt, and need user testing and bug reports for our beta version to iron out the bugs. Should the Court accept a version of isoHunt Lite during the injunction phase, it may become the required interface for our US users. Currently the isoHunt lite beta is a work in progress. You can preview the beta now, and whether you are from the US or not, we welcome your bug reports on the new isoHunt Lite:

http://isohunt.com/lite/

A reason for isoHunt Lite is that we propose it as a measure for injunction, as it no longer contains any red flags for inducement that were found at Summary Judgment. And without inducement, an important question with wide ramifications we can then ask is, when does a content agnostic search engine that specializes in a vertical like the BitTorrent ecosystem be ineligible for the DMCA Safe Harbors, an information location tool like isoHunt that has both non-infringing and infringing uses? When non-infringing uses in the ecosystem is growing, exemplified by the latest independent success stories like in Ink?

We will have an injunction hearing on March 22. Our appeal will follow after that, stay tuned.

UPDATE (after hearing): Despite rumors that we are ordered to keyword filter for US, there's only a proposed order, no actual order. Freedom of speech, non-infringing use and technical implementability issues are still being debated.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 163

isoHunt sues CRIA in self defense, Round 2 [136]

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:30:19 GMT

I already wrote a fair bit about our legal struggle with CRIA, so I'm not repeating them here again. Since CRIA's initial cease and desist letters (effectively asking us to shutdown entirely), we have tried to reason with CRIA, have petitioned the court on our legal right to exist as a search engine. Both to no avail, since Judge Curtis has denied our "petition" as improper form, and have ordered us to a normal, lengthy and costly legal "action". We have done that this week.

Here's our Statement of Claim (pdf) we just filed for our action at the BC Supreme Court.

As I've written to the Canadian government in the public consultation for upcoming copyright reform, I have high hopes for Canadian copyright laws and its courts to not make the mistakes that have been made elsewhere in the world. We must fight the increasing noise we are drowned in, that file sharing is stealing. I believe we Canadians are especially blessed with musical talent such as Sarah McLachlan, Celine Dion, Nelly Furtado, Lights and many others. So many that our "cultural output" per capita is arguably greater than that of many other countries. And we have done this without the excessive litigation against consumers that the legal climate in countries like our southern neighbor has encouraged. Thanks in part to our lack of DMCA-like copyright laws that does more harm than good.

With continued changes in both the digital marketplace and usage of P2P search engines like isoHunt, I believe now is a better time than ever to put our differences aside with copyright owners, and figure out how we can utilize P2P distribution and social media for the benefit of all. The internet has widened our choice in music more than ever before, and the music industry is live and well contrary to lies of certain lobbyists. The EU have also commissioned a study that found, P2P is not to blame for failures of certain parts of content industries. Why? How? Because P2P is the greatest radio ever.

If you are a musician and agree with us, we would love to hear from you! We have already heard many interesting feedback, like that of a book author, we want to hear more. And I cordially invite you to join our new spinoff, Hexagon.cc. Together, we can create a better future for content distribution and sharing. Same goes out to film makers, software and game developers.

As for CRIA and member record labels, if you come to your sense of reason, I would love to talk to you outside of court. The ball you've dropped on us is back to you.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 136

Hexagon.cc exclusive film release: In Guantanamo [12]

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:33:03 GMT

From our friends at Vodo, here comes their second film release after US Now: In Guantanamo. This is a quote of what the short documentary film is about:

Quote:

David Miller’s quiet, powerful film is the result of three days the filmmaker spent touring the Guantanamo prison camps in May 2008, as part of a small group of media representatives allowed there. Although the event was presented as a chance to ‘see inside’ the working of Guantanamo, it was in fact a carefully staged PR exercise designed to yield predictable, stale, controlled media images.

This is an exclusive release on Hex, so you got this from us first By no means however should this remain exclusive, and Vodo's films are Creative Commons licensed. So share on!

We are excited to have Vodo creating their group at Hexagon. Hexagon.cc has now grown to more than 70,000 users with over 2000 groups, covering various interests and social circles. If you haven't seen Hexagon.cc yet, time to see what it's about!

And of course, support Vodo and join their group! For aspiring musicians and fans, check out our featured groups from Awesome New Republic and our Creative Commons group. Hex is all about connecting artists and producers with fans, so spread the word and find new interesting uses for torrent and video sharing at Hexagon.cc.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 12

Announcing Hexagon.cc, a Social File Sharing site [114]

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:11:45 GMT

With a short review at Torrentfreak and a mention in my interview with BBC, I'm excited to finally announcing a public preview of our spinoff project Hexagon.cc ! We have spent 2 years developing this, and I assure you this will change the way you think of a BitTorrent site and file sharing.

How is Hexagon different? The biggest conceptual change is everything is shared within groups you can join and create yourself. These groups can be public, based on interests or made by independent bands, film makers, game studios, etc. for promotional purposes. They can also be made private, so you can very easily and comfortably invite your friends to a private group for sharing your private videos and such. You can do this on Youtube and similar sites, but with BitTorrent, you can share any type of file and not only video, and there's no restriction on file format or size (as much as you can seed). In Hexagon groups, you can also share both torrents as well as flash videos so you get the best of both worlds. This blend of BT and flash video sharing is an unique first.

Another big feature of Hexagon is organization. We've seen through the rise of sharing on BitTorrent, volume of spam rises with its popularity. We've addressed this on isoHunt with comments and rating powered by you, but on Hexagon we've taken organization and spam control to a whole new level technically. Hexagon is (currently) invite only, so if a spammer gets in somehow and start inviting other spammers and creating other accounts, we can chain ban such with relative ease. Hexagon have also taken a very sophisticated approach to files organization. Besides tags now commonly found on many sites, Hexagon did away with the traditional "Videos", "Audio", etc. general categorization and instead, you can label or link your torrent posts with Semantic Web resources. For example, a firefox 3.5 torrent should associate to the Firefox resource, and under the Firefox resource you can easily browse all torrents in association for different versions of Firefox. This is a definite first for any social media site, and goes a long way in organizing the huge volume of torrents being shared.

Hexagon.cc is currently open for more users to stress test the system. We would very much appreciate your feedback as we continue to add new features and improve the site! But first, Digg this and Reddit this before

Sign up with this limited invitation: ~~http://lobby.hexagon.cc/invitations/0UAUYvncEt~~ http://lobby.hexagon.cc/invitations/kLVGYtaQmG <- (new invites available now at new link)

Read on if you want to see more details on the design, features and future direction of Hexagon.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 114

Globe & Mail's series, the Download Decade [12]

Mon, 11 May 2009 07:28:38 GMT

Globe and Mail, a high profile Canadian business newspaper, has launched the Download Decade series (digg this, they deserve it!). 6 months in the making and for one which they revamped their whole site programming in order to accommodate the new multimedia in the series, I especially applaud the fact that the Globe and Mail have now joined the CBC in releasing multimedia content over BitTorrent. Adoption of BitTorrent at big publications like G&M in a series celebrating the 10th year anniversary of Napster is a symbolic milestone in itself. What can we look forward to in the next decade to come? I think it's going to be exciting.

Currently only Part 1 of 5 in the series is out at launch of the Download Decade, featuring a long look back at Napster and the beginning of P2P. I have been interviewed, expect yours truly to come up in the coming parts. There's so much insights summed up in the series involving the enormously complicated legal and political issues surrounding copyright, culture and creativity, with well compiled audio/video interviews and interactive content. I highly recommend you to follow this series.

And of course, what's a news worth without torrents? Torrent of Part 1 as well as the upcoming parts in the series should be indexed here.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 12

Tweeting, Facebooking and other news [25]

Sat, 02 May 2009 02:48:26 GMT

I'm finding less time to write long writeups, so I'm going to start "microblogging" on Twitter instead since a lot of our news is commentary on external links relevant to isoHunt and BitTorrent anyways. This way I can post short comments on interesting news much quicker, and you can tweet your heart out on individual links.

Announcements and news not found anywhere else will still be posted as longer posts here on isoHunt frontpage, particular to developments on isoHunt and BitTorrent/P2P generally.

Also, since we find the new Facebook Pages to be better layout and public, we are moving our old Facebook group to our new Facebook page. Check it out and be a fan!

And here's some local (to us) news on me demonstrating my Jedi mind tricks: This is not the CD you are looking for.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 25

Word from our special partners and sponsors [3]

Sat, 02 May 2009 02:30:49 GMT

A few announcements from our partners that a fairly significant in the BitTorrent scene.

First off, quoting ANR below:

Quote:

Awesome New Republic (ANR) and Honor Roll Music are proud to announce the free release of ANR's Rational Geographic Volume 1 as a direct 25mb .zip download via their homepage and from all major torrent sites ( torrents listing ). ANR is targeting the torrent community with a month-long sponsorship of Isohunt, via a prominently featured banner advertisement that links directly to both the .zip file and torrent. In a music industry that is quickly changing, Honor Roll Music recognizes that torrent search engines such as Isohunt should not be vilified, but rather worked with cooperatively in order to reach millions of music fans eager to discover and download new music. Awesome New Republic and Honor Roll are confident that the genuine musicianship and modern pop sensibility displayed on Rational Geographic Volume 1 will speak for itself, and in turn captivate the attention of anyone who listens.

This marks an important milestone, that there is indeed common ground between isoHunt (and sharing sites like it) and musicians, filmmakers, game makers, etc. With TPB losing their trial, it's important to see this fact, that P2P is not about piracy or stealing, but that it is a better Radio that can be used for the benefit of creative people. I know many of you loath "bad" or distasteful ads (believe me, I try to get rid of them but ads are what keeps this site going), but this is one ad shouldn't miss

Secondly, another awesome use of our JSON api besides the awesome iPhone web app: LittleShoot mashes social media sharing and searching for torrents or flash videos alike. Torrents search results in LittleShoot is powered by isoHunt, and props to them for making torrenting easier for new and old users alike!

Last but not least, we are running a big promotion with Jinx: Free isoHunt sticker with any t-shirt purchase! Plus get 20% off everything at Jinx for the month of May (while supplies last), if you checkout with coupon code ISOHUNT . Grab your free isoHunt stickers now and stick them everywhere! And our shirts too with the discount!

Posted by: IH
Comments: 3

What kind of file sharer are you? [238]

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:14:58 GMT

With the media attention our recent court date with CRIA have generated (good comments here ), the debate has centered around "piracy" this and piracy that and whether isoHunt as a search engine "facilitates" such piracy. I would of course say we don't, with all the non-infringing uses I've endorsed on the frontpage here with Creative Commons or otherwise copyleft content (OSS) that have adopted BitTorrent distribution. But that's not the point of this post.

I want to quote an excerpt from Lessig's book Free Culture below, and ask you as a user of isoHunt and BitTorrent a basic question: What kind of file sharer are you? What brought you to using BitTorrent, and which of the following is the most common use you have when downloading and sharing with BitTorrent? Which use case is most important to you?

Quote:

File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different kinds into four types.

A. There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD, these users simply take it. We might quibble about whether everyone who takes it would actually have bought it if sharing didn't make it available for free. Most probably wouldn't have, but clearly there are some who would. The latter are the target of category A: users who download instead of purchasing.

B. There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing it. Thus, a friend sends another friend an MP3 of an artist he's not heard of. The other friend then buys CDs by that artist. This is a kind of targeted advertising, quite likely to succeed. If the friend recommending the album gains nothing from a bad recommendation, then one could expect that the recommendations will actually be quite good. The net effect of this sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased.

C. There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the transaction costs off the Net are too high. This use of sharing networks is among the most rewarding for many. Songs that were part of your childhood but have long vanished from the marketplace magically appear again on the network. (One friend told me that when she discovered Napster, she spent a solid weekend "recalling" old songs. She was astonished at the range and mix of content that was available.) For content not sold, this is still technically a violation of copyright, though because the copyright owner is not selling the content anymore, the economic harm is zero--the same harm that occurs when I sell my collection of 1960s 45-rpm records to a local collector.

D. Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away.

And based on comments here and elsewhere, one I'm reminded I've heard before, I venture to add a 5th case:

UPDATED wrote:

E. Those who use sharing networks to download what they already bought in another digital form. Aka. format shifting, for various reasons including DRM or for backup purposes. Examples include:

* You bought a copy-protected CD, and you can't conveniently transfer the songs to your iPod or MP3 player.
* Games that are so crippled by copy protection that you had trouble running the game you bought, but a downloaded copy would be free of such crippling DRM. 2649 1/5 stars offers amusing insight.
* Your HDDVD player stopped working, no player is sold anymore, and you want Bluray versions of HDDVD movies you bought.
* Software/games where the CD/DVD they came on have been too scratched up to play (by your children or whatever reason). Case of downloading a backup copy of digital goods you bought.

Free Culture's chapter on Piracy elaborates on the first 4 cases, you can read them there. Since the copyright owners are so fond of using the term piracy and calling you pirates, I believe it's important for you to know and discuss just what is piracy?

Posted by: IH
Comments: 238

Search results fixes, New ads [47]

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:31:57 GMT

Firstly, our search results are currently bugged with missing torrents, due to a software glitch. We are fixing this and should be corrected in no more than 2 hours.

As part of this glitch, we've upgraded our spam detectors against the ever increasing flood of spam torrents.

Secondly, we are testing a new ad format which you probably have noticed. It slides up from the bottom right corner. It doesn't show on every page, and it shows high quality advertising that should interest you. I've been wary of more intrusive ads like popups and interstitials (full page ads that you have to skip through), but advertising is doing badly in the current economy, and the slider I believe is a fair compromise.

I do want your feedback on the new ad format, it's why I'm posting this. Please tell us what you think, and I appreciate your understanding of why we are testing new ad formats. Your experience on search quality of isoHunt comes first as always.

UPDATE: A bug has been found and fixed, that caused some more empty search results pages.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 47

On legal spectacles [46]

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:23:59 GMT

With the TPB trial just wrapping up, some comments on our case and theirs.

Some have asked me what's going on with our case(s), with no update for a while. For our US case, there really hasn't been any news. We are still waiting on Judge Wilson to decide on MPAA's motion for summary judgment. Since it's taken so long (15 months and counting on this motion), I'm sure the Judge will make a careful opinion on this motion with many important issues raised at stake.

For our Canadian case, we are currently defending against CRIA's motion to convert our petition to a full action. It's disappointing to see CRIA wanting to unnecessarily complicate our well defined petition, in attempt to bog us down with time and money through messy discovery and in the process the court's time too. We are no doubt fighting this upcoming motion in about ~~April~~ March and will update on how that goes.

For TPB's trial, it's been amusing to see how poorly organized the prosecutors are and how weak is their expert witnesses in proving anything technical. And I'm slightly jealous their trial came before ours when our MPAA case started much earlier. But yesterday's arguments from the prosecution can I believe make or break their case. They point out that Google for example "works with rights holders to prevent piracy. TPB on the other hand constantly mocks rights holders." While we follow similar copyright policy as Google, there is big problems with our current copyright regimes and I wish the best for TPB. Because the copyright system is fundamentally broken, with terms lasting over 100 years and with almost no way to know what maybe copyright infringing, in what country and in what context of sharing, and what authorization for distribution rights holders have granted. If TPB win, it would perhaps be a sign that we can start pushing back for more fair and sane copyright.

UPDATE (CRIA motion):
I've tweeted the court meeting with CRIA lawyers, it's been covered by TorrentFreak and various Canadian media coverage, such as Ottawa Citizen and CTV.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 46

We are 6 years old! And on load issues.. [83]

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:35:08 GMT

We know about current server load issues and occasional code 500 server errors. Upgrades will be done in the next few days which should fix slow down and the occasional errors. Stay tuned.

Oh and hope you had a happy new year! And happy birthday to us, isoHunt is now 6 years old

(I don't remember which day I launched the site, but it was January 2003)

Posted by: IH
Comments: 83

Blender Releases New Free Open Source 3D Game [27]

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:59:12 GMT

The Blender Institute has just released a new project. After releasing under the Creative Common two awesome Pixar quality short subjects Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny (get it here in 720p or here in 1080p or just watch it here ), the Institute is now releasing Yo Frankie! , a fully free and open source 3D game under the Creative Common license, everything from the artwork to the code is freely re-usable and modifiable even commercially.

By running the game directly from Blender, you can even modify it and see what happens directly from the software, a nice way to learn how to do your own game.

To run the game, just download Blender for your OS and open the file "levels/start_menu.blend" from Blender, this file and all the needed ones are available from this isoHunt release . You can also support the project by buying the DVD of the game here .

That's not all, a Non Profit Organization called Freezing Moon is now using Blender to develop a free and open source MMORPG by a couple of years, so stay tuned...

Posted by: patcito
Comments: 27

JSON api, iPhone app, New Features [64]

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:00:50 GMT

Time for announcing some changes and additions to isoHunt.com, both visible and behind the scenes.

First, a treat for web programmers: we are releasing a new JSON interface to our search results, so you can create innovative new apps, widgets, mashups and frontends using our data. Think desktop widgets, Facebook apps, and iGoogle gadgets. Simple API docs follow this post in this comment. For users, what matters is the apps made using this, and here are 2 great examples.

1. iPhone search with uTorrent webui integration from Team Louish
This app searches isoHunt.com using our JSON interface, and displays results formatted for iPhones or similarly small sized screens, like Blackberry or other smartphones. If you installed uTorrent's WebUI and the iPhone variation, you can save its IP and port as a cookie on the web app, and you can click (or rather, finger) the blue circular icon next to any search result to send the torrent to your uTorrent for download. For iPhone/smartphone and uTorrent users, this is unbeatable. This lets you search for torrents wherever you are, and remotely start downloads on your uTorrent client at home quickly. You can see a sample search for ubuntu on the app here, or see link above for screenshots of the app in action on an iPhone.

For the uTorrent integration, you are perhaps wary of privacy issue in sharing your uTorrent webui's IP/port with a website. You should be. But in this case, looking at their HTML source, your webui's IP and port are stored as a cookie in your phone's browser, and the links for sending torrents to your uTorrent are generated client-side by Javascript. None of these touches any server, just your browser direct to your uTorrent webui. The search requests of course have to go to Team Louish's server which in turn hit our JSON api.

2. Vuze search template
This file adds isoHunt search results to Vuze's meta search. I you have Vuze (previously named Azureus) installed, this file would open in Vuze. I appreciate various user made templates before, but most of them didn't parse our search results quite right. This template uses our JSON interface and includes convenient, direct torrent download links in Vuze search. I've tried talking to the Vuze guys before on including isoHunt as a default search, but they have shown more interest in including search engines with poorer and more outdated results than they have shown us. Maybe you'll have better luck than me.

You can also find Vuze search templates for Torrentbox and Podtropolis here. Refer to this thread for discussion specific to the Vuze search templates.

For isoHunt site updates, we've added direct voting on your download history:

After registering and downloading .torrent files while logged in to isoHunt, you always had the option to save your download history for reference later. To further encourage community involvement in moderating torrents in our search results, we have added direct Feedback voting (+1 / -1) in your download history. You can see your download history as seen in sample in above screenshot, on the first page after logging in to isoHunt. If you are already logged in, click the Settings & History link at top right on isoHunt to go back to it.

You may also notice the "RSS feeds of your download history" link in the above screenshot, which we added a few weeks back. This gives you a private feed of your download history. One use of this is subscribe to your personal feed in your BitTorrent client. That way, whenever and wherever you click .torrent files on isoHunt while logged in, your BT client would pick up the latest from the feed and start downloading. Another way to remote download torrents from isoHunt, especially if you don't use uTorrent. Or perhaps you want to show your friends what you are downloading, by importing your RSS into your blog or Facebook wall. Your private feed is secure as long as you don't share its URL, or import it on where you don't want prying eyes from seeing them. Social networks may have enough privacy control to make this useful for you.

And to improve our references to indexed sites per torrent:

Previously, only 1 indexed site is linked on our torrent details pages, on a first indexed first shown basis. This is still the case, but under it, on mouse over the indexed link, you'll see all other sites from where we indexed the same .torrent file. The "find comments elsewhere" link after it would Google the torrent's unique info_hash for any further references to it, if we missed any.

By checking lists of sites where torrents originated, you have more safeguard against spam. For example, a ubuntu torrent, listed from torrent.ubuntu.com as seen in above screenshot, pretty much guarantees you are not getting a spam or fake torrent that's not what its filenames say it is. All the more reasons and ways you can use isoHunt as your first stop to search for torrents from anywhere, and you'll find all references to research further online. Props to Patcito who helped code most of these updates.

Posted by: IH
Comments: 64