For anyone who runs torrents, today is a sad day. If you don't know what they are or if you're a media producer, it's a victory.
Isohunt.com has been shut down.
A little background: Those who remember the glory days of pioneering
peer-to-peer file-sharing client
Napster will be familiar with the point of torrents. Napster didn't have central servers, it allowed you to connect to the machines of other individual users to download files, usually illegally, including music, movies, and software. Of course, with no central controls, it was also a haven for viruses and other malware that would do terrible damage to someone's machine. It was a risky activity.
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| Napster |
Nowadays, we have torrents. I don't condone it, but I understand it. The way it works is as follows: You want to download a movie or television show, say. You would locate the appropriate torrent online (it actually has the .torrent extension), download it, and then click on it, which would open your chosen torrent client software, and the tv show/movie/whatever would download. It would then be added as a 'seed,' meaning others could connect to you to download the same file.
Similar to Napster, you are connecting to multiple other users to download the file with no central server which makes the transfer very difficult to track. In fact, ISPs (COX or Comcast or whoever) try to identify those running torrents by the amount of data transmitting over their connection.
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| Isohunt screen |
Isohunt was the main site for locating these torrents, along with a comment section and listing of uploaders and downloaders to help verify the integrity of the file. However, because it was obviously a pirating site, it has agreed to shut down and pay a $10 million fine, although they have no way of paying. The creator of the site tried to argue that it simply listed he torrents without supplying them, as users connected to other users and not the site, but that logic was unsuccessful. It's hardly the only torrent site out there, so I suspect others will pick up the slack.
the little kid in me is screaming no and just saying "but" over and over again...where the adult in me would say "NO BUT"S". I do agree that it is highly risky and not worth it. To download a virus and crash a computer that is worth more then going to the movie theater or watching it on PPV or netflix is not smart.
ReplyDeleteI never knew what a torrent was before reading this article, but it was very interesting to learn about. I'm sure the technology world was happy about this shut down.I don't think this or any website is worth owing a 10 million dollar fine. When you see ads or come across websites that say download for free that should somewhat be a red flag because you just never know what the download contains and its not worth messing up your whole computer over.
ReplyDeleteWell this clears up my lack of knowledge regarding torrents. Very risky and not worth it.
ReplyDeleteSo crazy to me to see the fines levied in these cases. Yes, piracy has caused movie & music producers damage due to copyright infringement, but sticking them with an impossible to pay $110 million fine isn't going to accomplish anything except ruining their financial lives, and trying to scare the rest of those out there. Maybe that is all they are trying to accomplish, but it seems a little harsh. The companies said in the original article that they would try to get $600 million should it have gone to court. I recall back to the one case early in pirating history when a lady, I want to say from Minnesota although I could be mistaken, was hit with a penalty of like $40,000 per song that she downloaded. Yes, stealing copyrighted work is not just, but to equate damages to that extent is a little over the top. Especially on something that technically only "costs" $1 or $2 from the iTunes store. It's been an interesting story to follow throughout the entire "file sharing age" to say the very least.
ReplyDeleteHad no idea what a torrent was. I never jumped on the Napster bandwagon nor have I ever downloaded a movie, TV show, or music file in this way. I'm too scared of the viruses and malware that could be attached to the files. I'd rather be safe than sorry.
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend and brother run torrents all day long! I've tried once to get The Sims 3, and it was successful, but my old laptop's graphics card and CPU wasn't able to handle the game, thus it continually overheated and force shut down. Since then I have never been interested. I was, however, much more into LimeWire (RIP) and FrostWire, but have since slowed down. Now if I ever desire something, I'll try looking for it online to view, or revert to my brother or boyfriend to supply. I do agree that fees are outrageous. This wasn't even a profit making company, so they are unable to produce any money, besides personal funds. Shame
ReplyDeleteWhile it may suck that isohunt has shut down, I don't think that it is necessarily the end of an era. Shutting down a site like that just paves the way for ten more to open. I also do not think that it was the definitive website to go to for these, as TPB has a TON of active users, and has been attacked by many different countries governments, and has never been shut down for long. I watched a documentary about TPB and all of their servers were confiscated, and the site was back up before long. They have now reverted to cloud storage so it is very difficult to track and disable the servers of which The Pirate Bay operates through. They have also been known to entice governmental powers, such as the United States' Congress and the Sweedish government, basically claiming the same things as Isohunt, that they are doing nothing illegal and the actions of their users has no effect from their own doing. This has all been discussed in depth in their own documentary, TPB AFK (mainly in sweedish, with subtitles). Don't worry, this torrent is from The Pirate Bay themselves, so you don't need to worry about copyright bullcrap.
ReplyDeletehttp://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8140087/The_Pirate_Bay_Away_from_Keyboard_(2013)_720p_BrRip_x264_-_YIFY