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Legal
Canadian BitTorrent search service sues the majors
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 1 December 2009
Sometimes it works this way round. A Canadian BitTorrent search engine called isoHunt is taking legal action against the Canadian Recording Industry Association and all four major record companies in a bid to get the country’s courts to rule that the service it offers does not infringe copyright.
It’s the latest development in isoHunt founder Gary Fung’s attempt to have his file-sharing search service declared legit in the face of infringement claims from the music and movie industries. He argues that while his website links to all sorts of infringing content, isoHunt itself does not provide, host or endorse any illegal music or movie files.
It’s the standard line used by file-sharing search services looking to sidestep accusations of copyright infringement, of course, though one that has often proved unsuccessful. isoHunt basically operates like the search component of The Pirate Bay and the founders of the Swedish service were, of course, found guilty of copyright infringement for simply providing links to unlicenced content. Judges often make such services liable for the infringement actually undertaken by their users by applying the principle of ‘authorising’ or ‘contributory’ infringement.
However, despite the precedent set in The Pirate Bay case, Fung might be onto something. The Canadian courts have not been overly helpful to record and film companies trying to challenge file-sharing, with many judges there saying Canada’s copyright laws, passed in 1985, are too vague to enable them to actually deem anyone sharing music files online to be guilty of copyright infringement. Until the country’s copyright laws are updated – and that’s been a long time coming – Fung probably has a strong case that isoHunt is not infringing any copyrights under Canadian law.
With all that in mind in 2008 Fung asked the British Columbia court to formally confirm his service did not violate Canadian copyright law. They refused, saying there would have to be a full case to confirm whether or not that was the case. He unsuccessfully appealed that ruling, so is now embarking on that full court case, by suing the CRIA and their major label members.
Commentators reckon it will take at least a year for the case to come to court, which basically gives isoHunt the OK to continue to operate in the meantime. With that in mind, Fung told reporters yesterday: “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”.
