Thread: US District Court Rejects the 'Google' Defense

US District Court Rejects the 'Google' Defense

For years, public indexers have felt somewhat safe in the United States. Under the Safe Harbor provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, information location tools - Google, for example - are exempt from liability in copyright infringement cases. Public indexers collect and share torrent links to materials connecting through public trackers. Indexers merely provide the .torrent file; they don't track the torrent as well. These indexers, such as The Pirate Bay (now) and isoHunt, have always held the notion that they are providing a service no different than Google. Indeed one can even use a Google search to find similar information. Recently, a California Court disagreed with this assertion, in a ruling against isoHunt's Gary Fung.



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US District Court Rejects the 'Google' Defense

For years, public indexers have felt somewhat safe in the United States. Under the Safe Harbor provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, information location tools - Google, for example - are exempt from liability in copyright infringement cases. Public indexers collect and share torrent links to materials connecting through public trackers. Indexers merely provide the .torrent file; they don't track the torrent as well. These indexers, such as The Pirate Bay (now) and isoHunt, have always held the notion that they are providing a service no different than Google. Indeed one can even use a Google search to find similar information. Recently, a California Court disagreed with this assertion, in a ruling against isoHunt's Gary Fung.

An article at Lexology.com states that the MPAA has won its case against Fung and isoHunt. In a summary judgement - a determination of the court made without a full trial - the court found that isoHunt could not make use of the safe harbor provisions. The judgement found that that Fung had would have know of his users' infringing activities as the site had a top searches feature that frequently listed many copyrighted works. It also found that Fung had provided no evidence that he had responded promptly and properly to DCMA takedown requests.

isoHunt has always maintained that it responds promptly to any properly served takedown request. Additionally, the summary judgement uses a secondary liability theory: inducement to infringe. The court determined that the “[d]efendants’ inducement liability is overwhelming clear.” In all honesty, this author does not believe that Fung's fight will end here.

Although the possibility exists for appeal, it is indeed troubling that a US court has rejected the argument that torrents are no different than search links. It has always been the argument of bittorrent indexers and trackers alike that the true criminals are those who upload and download the infringing materials. This US court disagrees.

i h8 my country

bad news :(

Apparently indexing all of the internet including torrents is fine, but indexing just torrents is a no-no. Oh the hypocrisy that is America.

so no more googleing for .torrent ?
maybe this aint such a bad thing;i mean go private

Originally Posted by acela

so no more googleing for .torrent ?
maybe this aint such a bad thing;i mean go private

That is true however what happens when there are no more public trackers? While it may not happen soon, that is where we're heading I think. Public trackers absorb a lot of heat and once they are gone or significantly diminished Private trackers are next on the hit list no? Just a thought.

Originally Posted by NaM3L3SS

That is true however what happens when there are no more public trackers? While it may not happen soon, that is where we're heading I think. Public trackers absorb a lot of heat and once they are gone or significantly diminished Private trackers are next on the hit list no? Just a thought.

I agree with you here. Yea bringing down a private tracker might be much more difficult, but if all of the public trackers cease, then only naturally the rest of the trackers(private) will slowly "be brought to justice". Damn that sucks....

so, get the torrents while they're hot