IsoHunt’s Endeavor to Be Declared Legit Continues
Lately there has been a rather unfortunate p2p climate as headlines concerning some of the most popular torrent sites have revealed bad news all starting, of course, from legal matters. isoHunt’s founder, Gary Fung, wants to change that as he seeks for a favorable decision in court but what chances does he really have?
After The Pirate Bay announced earlier this month the shutting down of its torrent tracker (but denied any connection between the decision and the legal pressure that was put onto two of the site’s founders), yesterday we reported how Mininova has finally capitulated to the entertainment industry’s joy and complied with the court’s ruling given this summer which had asked it to remove all the links to copyright protected material.
So here is Gary Fung trying to counterattack and obtain a ruling that would favor a torrent site for once. The operator has sued the Canadian branch of the RIAA more than a year ago in an attempt to obtain legalization for the site’s operations. This week, Fung submitted a full claim to the court.
Back in March, this year, isoHunt and the CRIA appeared before a judge who finally decided that the case must benefit a full trial. The ruling was appealed unsuccessfully by Fung who saw himself forced to attend a full trial.
Earlier this week, Fung filed the statement of claim (pdf) with the Supreme Court and pursued his battle against the copyright group. The statement includes a description of how the search engines he operates (isoHunt, Torrentbox and Podtropolis) actually work and the request for legalizing them (a decision of the court that would say these sites don’t infringe Canadian copyright law).
“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,” said Fung.
“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,” he added.
We keep our fingers crossed for Fung and hope his efforts will not have been in vain. We’ll keep you posted with the ongoing case.
(via TorrentFreak)
