Isohunt sues CRIA

In a rather odd twist of fate, the peer-to-peer isoHunt web site has launched a lawsuit against the Canadian Record Industry Association (CRIA), seeking a judge to rule that the popular BitTorrent tracking web site does not infringe on record studio copyrights.

In May, isoHunt founder Gary Fung and company were caught in between a rock and a hard place when the CRIA sent them a Cease and Desist letter requesting the site be taken offline immediately. If Fung didn’t comply with the letter, the CRIA said it was ready to request $20,000 for each song the torrent site infringed upon.

Although the Cease and Desist letter worked with the Demonoid web site, Fung wasn’t ready to throw in the towel.

"We have since tried to come to an understanding, but just as with the MPAA in the US, they ignored our offers of cooperation by the take down of .torrent links to their content files, so long as they provide sufficient identification," Fung told TorrentFreak in an interview.

Similar to other BitTorrent web sites, isoHunt has a Copyright Policy in which they remove all torrent files if a copyright holder or approved third-party send an official request to isoHunt officials.

The lawsuit is a preemptive strike against the CRIA, and will prove to be interesting because the court will have to decide if .torrent files, and the BitTorrent web sites that host them, are infringing copyright. Depending on the outcome of this legal matter, it could have serious ramifications for other BitTorrent web sites and for Internet search engines.