isoHunt, a fairly popular BitTorrent website has been shutdown by its ISP without warning. The website which was hosted in the US has since moved to a Canadian ISP where they expect to return online from, but it currently just has a temporary status message mentioning about the issue.
Last year, isoHunt had a lawsuit failed against them by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for alleged mass copyright infringement, however while the site mentions the shutdown was likely related to this lawsuit, no official statement has been made yet by the MPAA to indicate this. However, the MPAA has succeeded bringing down popular BitTorrent sites in the past. On the other hand, announcing the shutdown of a site can also backfire if that springs back to life, since it effectively becomes unwanted publicity for the site. The Pirate Bay is a good example where the MPAA put out a press release mentioning that the Swedish authorities have shut down the website, only for it spring back to life temporarily in the Netherlands, before returning to Sweden to continue online where it left off.
Going by isoHunt's website, they have no intention of moving to Sweden (where The Pirate Bay is currently hosted) or to Sealand, but have instead have set up on new hardware in Canada. They have currently moved their data to Canada and expect to be back up tomorrow.
Thanks to GRiM for mentioning about this news.
