1337x: it is a free P2P file sharing site, using the Torrent protocol, which provides a list of torrent files and magnet links. The site has been banned by Google, and does not show in search lists. The site also presents a list of alternative domains.
Of all the major torrent sites that dominated the Internet at the beginning of this decade, only a few remain. One of the sites that fell prey to ever-increasing pressure from the entertainment industry was. Founded by the Canadian entrepreneur, the site was one of the early pioneers in the world of torrents, paving the way for many others. However, this spotlight also caught the attention of the major movie studios. After a lengthy legal battle isoHunt’s founder eventually the site late 2013.
This happened after Fung signed a settlement agreement with Hollywood for no less than $110 million, on paper at least. Launching a new torrent search engine was never really an option, but Fung decided not to let his expertise go to waste. He focused his time and efforts on a new search project instead, which was unveiled to the public this week.
The new app called “” has just been added to Apple’s iOS store. It’s a mobile search app that ties into Google’s backend, but with a different user interface. While it has nothing to do with file-sharing, we decided to reach out to isoHunt’s founder to find out more. Fung tells us that he got the idea for the app because he was frustrated with Google’s default search options on the mobile platform. “I find myself barely do any search on the smartphone, most of the time waiting until I get to my desktop. I ask why?” Fung tells us.
One of the main issues he identified is the fact that swiping is not an option. Instead, people end up browsing through dozens of mobile browser tabs. So, Fung took Google’s infrastructure and search power, making it swipeable. “From a UI design perspective, I find swiping through photos on the first iPhone one of the most extraordinary advances in computing. It’s so easy that babies would be doing it before they even learn how to flip open a book! “Bringing that ease of use to the central way of conducting mobile search and research is the initial eureka I had in starting work on WonderSwipe,” Fung adds.
That was roughly three years ago, and a few hours ago WonderSwipe finally made its way. Android users will have to wait for now, but the application will eventually be available on that platform as well. In addition to swiping through search results, the app also promises faster article loading and browsing, a reader mode with condensed search results, and a hands-free mode with automated browsing where summaries are read out loud. WonderwSwipe Of course, WonderSwipe is nothing like isoHunt ever was, apart from the fact that Google is a search engine that also links to torrents, indirectly. This similarity was also brought up during the lawsuit with the MPAA, when Fung’s legal team in court. However, the Canadian entrepreneur doesn’t expect that Hollywood will have an issue with WonderSwipe in particular. “isoHunt was similar to Google in how it worked as a search engine, but not in scope.
Torrents are a small subset of all the webpages Google indexes,” Fung says. “WonderSwipe’s aim is to find answers in all webpages, powered by Google search results. It presents results in extracted text and summaries with no connection to BitTorrent clients. As such, WonderSwipe can be bigger than isoHunt has ever been.” Ironically, in recent years Hollywood has often criticized Google for linking to pirated content in its search results. These results will also be available through WonderSwipe. However, Fung says that any copyright issues with WonderSwipe will have to be dealt with on the search engine level, by Google.
“If there are links to pirated content, tell search engines so they can take them down!” he says. Is totally free and Fung tells us that he plans to monetize it with in-app purchases for pro features, and non-intrusive advertising that won’t slow down swiping or search results. More details on the future plans for the app are.
. isoHunt was an and repository, where visitors could browse, search, download or upload torrents of various of mostly entertainment nature. The website was taken down in October 2013 as a result of a legal action from the; by the end of October 2013 however, two sites with content presumably mirrored from isohunt.com were reported in media. One of them— isohunt.to became a de facto replacement of the original site.
It is not associated in any way with the old staff or owners of the site, and is to be understood as a separate continuation. It originated in 2003 as isohunt.com website for search and reached over 13.7 million torrents in its database and 20 million from torrents. With 7.4 million unique visitors as of May 2006, isoHunt was one of the most popular search engines. Thousands of torrents were added to and deleted from it every day.
Users of isoHunt performed over 40 million unique searches per month. On October 19, 2008, isoHunt passed the 1 mark for torrents indexed globally. The site was the third most popular BitTorrent site as of 2008. According to isoHunt, the total amount of shared content was more than 14.11 as of June 13, 2012. The site came to an end when the legal battles that isoHunt's founder had been in for years with conglomerates of holders over allegations of came to a head. A settlement with the was reached in 2013, stipulating a $110 million reimbursement for damages and the site's closure that followed on October 21, 2013.
Contents. History isoHunt was founded in January 2003 by Gary Fung, a Canadian national.
Its name is derived from the term, used to describe a 1:1 soft copy of a disk (typically a CD or DVD). On February 23, 2006, the issued a press release stating they were suing isoHunt for copyright infringement. On September 2, 2009, isoHunt announced the launch of a spinoff site, hexagon.cc. The goal of hexagon.cc was to have a place for social groups based on certain niches to share specific content relevant to their interests. It is down until further notice. In early 2010, users in the US and along south eastern Canada were redirected to a stripped-down version called isoHunt Lite in order to remove some of the factors that were used in determining liability for infringement; however, full access was restored in early 2012. In October 2013 Isohunt announced it would shut down indefinitely.
After years of court battles over copyright infringement with the MPAA, Isohunt agreed to a settlement. Under the terms of the settlement Isohunt will shut down the site, and close three other sites that redirect to the Isohunt domain: Podtropolis, TorrentBox, and Edtk-it.com. Fung also agreed to pay $110 million in damages. The site was shut down on October 21, 2013, two days earlier than originally planned, leaving a farewell message from Gary Fung that also explained that the rush was to prevent backup activity — possibly the one reported to have been started. Legal Correspondence with the MPAA Selected items of email correspondence between Gary Fung and the have been posted on isoHunt.com. Lawsuit In February 2006 it was announced that the had launched legal proceedings against isoHunt, and several other BitTorrent indexing or tracker sites, alleging that these sites facilitate copyright infringement.
On February 28, 2006 a lawsuit was filed against Gary Fung in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Fung stands to oppose the on legal grounds. 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. On December 21, 2009, the court granted the MPAA's motion for, finding isoHunt and Fung liable for copyright infringement on the theory of inducement. The MPAA had presented evidence showing that the majority of content linked to on IsoHunt was infringing content, that the search engine was tuned to assist users in finding infringing works, and that Fung himself had made remarks suggesting the purpose of the site was to allow users to download infringing content. The court found that IsoHunt had not presented any satisfactory evidence to counter these claims, and at its core it was merely an 'evolutionary modification' of and, two P2P systems that had previously been held liable for inducing copyright infringement.
As a result, the court went on to issue a permanent injunction prohibiting IsoHunt to continue indexing and linking to infringing content. The case on appeal, dubbed, upheld the district court's findings on copyright infringement, but found that the injunction was overly burdensome to the extent it could prevent Fung from seeking legitimate employment, as certain provisions in the injunction would have prevented Fung from working in any technology company whose services could be used to infringe copyrighted content even if those companies were not engaged in copyright infringement. DMCA takedown notices IsoHunt has a history of complying with, and has worked with various copyright owners in the past, such as the. The site uses an takedown process modelled on the DMCA, even though the servers were relocated to in January 2007 where the DMCA does not apply. Lawsuit against the CRIA On September 8, 2008 Gary Fung announced on the isoHunt front page that he had made a preemptive move against an impending lawsuit from the by filing a petition to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Fung argues that isoHunt is merely a search engine to find torrents that are scattered around the web, much the same as or any other search engine can be used in the same way. Internet service providers On January 16, 2007, isoHunt was taken off-line, stating 'Lawyers from our primary decided to pull our plug without any advance notice'.
After a major hardware upgrade, the site resumed normal operation by January 22, 2007, although experiencing several brief periods of subsequent downtime due to server changes. On July/August 2013, obtained an order from the Court of Milan which demands to block isoHunt's domain and IP address. Shutdown as part of settlement with MPAA On October 17, 2013 announced the website isoHunt would shut down by Oct. 23, 2013, as part of a settlement in a massive copyright infringement suit filed by Hollywood studios, agreeing to pay $110 million for claims that the site induced the violation of copyrighted movies and TV shows although isoHunt never hosted such content. The settlement terms included a $110 million judgment against isoHunt and its owner, Gary Fung, ending a seven-year legal battle over its operations. According to court documents cited by the BBC, Fung's company will likely be able to pay only between two and four million dollars though.
The site shut down on 21 October 2013, 2 days earlier than the announced date, leaving a note from Gary Fung and a link to a 'trailer for the movie ' that is actually a. Initiating Self Destruct This is it. We are shutting down isoHunt services a little early. I'm told there was this Internet archival team that wants to make historical copy of our.torrent files, I'm honoured that people thinks our site is worthy of historical preservation, but the truth is about 95% of those.torrent files can be found off Google regardless and mostly have been indexed from other BitTorrent sites in the first place.
So I might as well do a proper send-off to you dear isoHunt users, before final shutdown sequence on Tuesday. It's been an adventure in the last 10.5 years working on isoHunt, a privilege working with some of the smartest guys I've worked with, and my life won't be the same without it. For what I'm working on next, please look up my blog on Google and follow me there. Because as the Terminator would say with a German accent, I'll be backkk. Content license α Taken offline when came online in Jan 2015 On October 30, 2013, two weeks following the shutdown of the original website, a group of people claiming to be dedicated to isoHunt's continuance brought a near-identical of the original website online, accessible via isohunt.to. Former staff member of original isoHunt has made it clear that the team behind isohunt.com has not been involved in any way in 'resurrection' of isoHunt. Another site, isohunt.ee, has also been reported to be an unauthorized clone of the original site.
ArchiveTeam have stated that they are not affiliated with any mirrors of isoHunt. Parts of the site they managed to preserve were uploaded to. OldPirateBay.org and The Open Bay. See also: OldPirateBay.org On December 13, 2014, just 4 days after a raid by took ThePirateBay.se offline, the isoHunt.to team launched a new website, OldPirateBay.org, mirroring the contents of a recent snapshot of. It is branded in isoHunt's style, featuring both a ghostly blue theme and the isoHunt logo.
The team stated that they would gladly take their copy of the site down if and when the original Pirate Bay came back online, which occurred on January 31, 2015. The Open Bay On December 19, 2014, isoHunt.to released a tool called The Open Bay at, providing original source code and additional tools in order to allow users to deploy their own version of The Pirate Bay website. See also. References. Retrieved 2016-04-01. ^ Ernesto (29 October 2013). Retrieved 4 June 2015.
Retrieved 2013-10-19. Retrieved 2009-10-19. Retrieved 2009-10-19. Retrieved 2011-09-29. Ernesto (17 October 2013). Retrieved 4 June 2015.
Retrieved 2009-12-28. 20 October 2013.
Retrieved 21 October 2013. IH (2003-01-21). Archived from on October 7, 2010. Retrieved 2009-10-19. Retrieved 2009-10-19. John Timmer. Ars Technica.
Nate Anderson. Ars Technica.
Retrieved 2009-10-19. 2008-09-06 at the, CD Freaks. Archived from on February 16, 2009.
Retrieved 2009-10-19. Archived from on June 22, 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-19. Ted Johnson. James Vincent (25 October 2013). The Independent. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
Retrieved 2014-12-19. Kerr, Dara. CNET Article.
Retrieved 31 October 2013. Ars Technica. Retrieved 17 December 2014. Protalinski, Emil (19 December 2014). Retrieved 19 December 2014. External links Wikinews has related news:. at the (archived October 14, 2013).