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Piracy (20 unread)

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June 16, 2010
15:36
BT and Hexagon.cc new TV series premiere [0]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

A first for BitTorrent and I believe for file sharing, here's an interesting new TV series pilot, Pioneer One. More coverage on Torrentfreak and here's the trailer. And brought to you by guys at VODO, here's an officially free, HD video torrent!

This series pilot, and upcoming episodes, will be supported by you fans. So support this new distribution method support them at [www.pioneerone.tv] financially or simply spread the word. Also check out more Vodo releases here.
Posted by: IH
Comments: 8
April 08, 2010
21:00
isoHunt Lite fixes, want feedback [0]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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 [isohunt.com] 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
Posted by: IH
Comments: 122
April 05, 2010
18:18
isoHunt Lite test roll out, isohunt.hk and on rumored filter [10]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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: 150
March 13, 2010
0:00
Part 2, or Are you tired of this crap yet? [2]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

Well, isn't this an interesting turn of events. If you remember my post from yesterday , you'd know that the basis of the matter is that Christine Filipak falsely accused a BT indexing site admin of being a child molester, stalker, and quite a few other not very nice things. Why'd she do this? A misunderstanding on her part regarding the voluntary DMCA compliance of that site (bitsnoop.com), which was hosted in Russia at the time. In the last 24 hours, I've made contact with Pavel, of bitsnoop.com, and requested all emails between them... not so surprisingly, he was more than happy to hand them over, and now, with his permission, you can read them too. Btw, I did in fact ask Christine Filipak of Monolith Graphics (representing Nox Arcana) for the same emails that bitsnoop provided me, and strangely enough, the more damaging emails from her to bitsnoop weren't included in what she provided us. Anyway, now the public can see how she tries to bully people into getting her way.

Taken out of context, here's something that Christine sent in the last couple hours.

Quote:

I really am sorry for saying pedophile. I agree that was harsh... a female reaction for sure.

So, Christine, not because bitsnoop.com refused to take down download links (which they did), but because bitsnoop's policy at the time was to leave non-links up (including index data, such as seed/leech stats), Christine not only threatened to (as you'll see in the emails below) but actually did in fact wage a war of misinformation against bitsnoop.com.

Anyway, if you'd like to just read the cliffnotes, monolithgraphics_notes.txt was written by me, and is arranged chronologically.

Nox Arcana fan? spend your money elsewhere.

Think that real pedophiles need to be put out of business? join the facebook group.

torrent here *updated
Please note, this URL may change, that is, if I get motivated enough to include the more recent correspondence where Christine tries to bully us into removing this commentary.

Update : our filestorage backend is having some maintenance performed on it right now. when I wake up tomorrow, I may readd that torrent to the release I did earlier, I might not.
Posted by: SecretSquirrel
Comments: 20
March 11, 2010

Permalink for 'The biggest part about the DMCA that annoys me is the liars [0]'

20:50

The biggest part about the DMCA that annoys me is the liars [0]

» ‎ isoHunt News

February 23, 2010
3:39
Copyright lawsuit update and introducing isoHunt Lite (Beta) [0]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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:

[isohunt.com]

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:

[isohunt.com]

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: 139
January 03, 2010
13:19
Warning! [1]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

WARNING: DO NOT OPEN ANY UNTRUSTED PDF FILES DOWNLOADED TO YOUR COMPUTER. (especially those that start downloading without your interaction) There currently is a 0-day (unpatched) flaw being exploited "in the wild" (this means on isohunt.com). We will try our hardest to filter out advertisers that are showing these bad advertisements, but we're not perfect. So, again, DO NOT OPEN, VIEW OR DOWNLOAD ANY PDF FILES that 'automatically' pop up.

Thanks

In the meantime, firewaling 193.104.22.0/24 and at least 89.149.236.46 as well will "help" mitigate the effects of these bad ads. 193.104.22.0/24 has been involved in more than just today's problems. We are in contact with our advertisers about these bad ads.

If you'd like to read more about the PDF exploit (and why you should disable pdf plugins immediately):
[isc.sans.org]
[extraexploit.blogspot.com]
Posted by: SecretSquirrel
Comments: 108
December 07, 2009
2:26
Mvix $1500+ Giveaway! [2]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

I know you are probably thinking, What, another "Free Prizes!" ad. But this is a direct and sincere offer from the folks at MvixUSA (who makes awesome torrent-enabled media centers and whose geeky products get picked up often in the Top 10 Holiday Gift Guides in many magazines). They have gone all festive on us and have sponsored a crazy Holiday Giveaway exclusive for isoHunt – Starting Today. We will have well over 30 items in the next twelve days to ensure you have lots of fun, lots of chances to win and lots of shopping ideas!

The 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway will run from December 8th to December 19th with a new and exciting prize every day. As we get closer to the final days, the prizes get bigger, better and more $$. It's worth over $1500 in total!

To enter, simply reply to this post as an isoHunt member in forum with the following: Have you used Mvix products before, what do you think about them, and how do you plan on using them. That's it! Each reply counts as one entry, only replies with the details above are counted, and you are allowed to reply to this draw once per day at most. Multiple accounts are automatically disqualified.

At the end of each day, a random drawing will be held for all eligible entries. Due to overwhelming responses and we needing to validate entrants, and most replies concerns Mvix's products generally rather than only on prize of upcoming day, the draw will happen at end of the 12 days. Your responses should still be directed toward the prize of the upcoming day as updated in this post, but only 1 post per isoHunt member will be counted towards draw for all 12 prizes. Winners will be contacted via private message / email on isohunt.com and will be announced as soon as confirmations come in.

Here are the prizes (to be updated for each upcoming draw):

Day 1 - Mvix Tshirt (Value: $5)
Day 2 - Mvix Tshirt + Optical Cable (Value: $10)
Day 3 - Mvix Tshirt + HDMI Cable (Value: $15)
Day 4 - Mvix TShirt + USB Wireless-G Adapter (Value: $30)
Day 5 - Mvix TShirt + USB SATA HDD Dock (Value: $40)
Day 6 - Mvix Tshirt + Nubbin USB Wireless-N Adapter (Value: $45)
Day 7 - Mvix MV-6000R Media Player (Value: $99)
Day 8 - Mvix MV-6000R Media Player + 500GB HDD (Value: $140)
Day 9 - Mvix Ultio MX-800HD Media Player (Value: $170) - What's Ultio?
Day 10 - Mvix Ultio MX-800HD Media Player + 500GB HDD (Value: $220) - What's Ultio?
Day 11 - Mvix Minx (MX-3250HD-BB) HTPC Barebones Kit (Value: $299)
Day 12 - Mvix Minx (MX-3250HD) Home Theater PC (Value: $399)
Posted by: IH
Comments: 726
November 27, 2009
6:30
isoHunt sues CRIA in self defense, Round 2 [1]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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: 129
November 05, 2009

Permalink for 'Hexagon.cc exclusive film release: In Guantanamo [1]'

16:33

Hexagon.cc exclusive film release: In Guantanamo [1]

» ‎ isoHunt News

September 03, 2009
2:11
Announcing Hexagon.cc, a Social File Sharing site [1]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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: [lobby.hexagon.cc] [lobby.hexagon.cc] <- (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
May 11, 2009
1:28
Globe & Mail's epic series, the Download Decade [0]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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: 8
May 01, 2009
20:48
Tweeting, Facebooking and other news [1]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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

Permalink for 'Word from our special partners and sponsors [0]'

20:30

Word from our special partners and sponsors [0]

» ‎ isoHunt News

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 Wink

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! Twisted Evil

And our shirts too with the discount!

Posted by: IH
Comments: 3

March 20, 2009

Permalink for 'What kind of file sharer are you? [122]'

22:14

What kind of file sharer are you? [122]

» ‎ isoHunt News

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: 219

March 14, 2009
21:31
Search results fixes, New ads [47]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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
March 03, 2009
23:23
On legal spectacles [40]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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
19:34
New Creative Commons Movie: Sita Sings the Blues! [15]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

As featured recently on Roger Ebert's Blog :

Sita Sings the Blues
Directed, written, produced, designed and animated by Nina Paley
82 minutes
Animation
Color, stereo
2008

Synopsis:
Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."

Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.sitasingstheblues.com.

The movie has recently been released as 480p, 720p, and 1080p mp4 files through archive.org; I have started them all as torrents:

NEW: 1080p mkv with FLAC audio (contains video identical to original 1080p version below)
1080p Version
720p Version
480p Version

Also it's available for streaming viewing on Google Video , in obviously far inferior quality (so I suggest using it just for previewing).
It's now available on Youtube in HD (just broken up into parts). The playlist with all 10 pieces ready to go is here:
[www.youtube.com]

Edit (IH): I think the fact that an interesting CC movie like this has to be broken up into 10 pieces for posting on youtube, says something about the efficacy of BitTorrent
Posted by: Falco98
Comments: 18
January 04, 2009
15:35
We are 6 years old! And on load issues.. [78]
» ‎ isoHunt News

Tags: [edit]

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: 79
December 18, 2008
15:59
Blender Releases New Free Open Source 3D Game [21]
» ‎ isoHunt News

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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
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