2009 has definitely been a bad year for the… uh, head pirates. Pirates-in-chief? Anyway, Judge Stephen Wilson of the US District Court, Central District of California has ruled in favor of Columbia Pictures’ “motion for summary judgment on liability as to inducing infringement” against Gary Fung, owner of several torrent sites, including the infamous IsoHunt. A summary judgment is basically a ruling that says that the decision is so obvious that there’s no sense in holding a full-blown trial for a case. I think I know now what the hands below IsoHunt’s logo represent: lawyers.
According to Ars Technica‘s John Timmer, Fung was lawyered fairly easily because he made several incriminating statements on his blog, such as questioning whether copyright infringement should be considered theft, and giving instructions on how to download movies and then burn them to DVDs.
The old “Google should be sued too because you can use their search engine to find torrents” argument wasn’t worth squat in Fung’s case, because one of his sites had specifically incriminating links, like links to torrents of “Top 20 movies” as well as TV shows and “High Quality DVD Rips”. There’s no word yet on Fung’s punishment, or if IsoHunt will be taken down, but I guess with a lopsided case like this it looks like the website’s days are numbered. Or Fung could host his torrent sites somewhere else, ala Demonoid.
