Music

Canadian torrent site isoHunt must pay music industry $66 million

by Richard Howard

After 10 years of legal wrangling, Canadian file-sharing site isoHunt and its founder, Vancouver resident Gary Fung, have finalized a settlement in which they will pay the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) $66 million.

In a consent order filed with the Supreme Court of B.C., Fung and isoHunt admit that that they infringed on the copyright of a group of 27 Canadian and international record companies and commit to paying $55 million in damages, $10 million in aggravated damages and $1 million in legal costs. This brings an end to Fung’s legal woes, which also included a $110 million settlement with the Motion Picture Association of America in 2013.

Fung announced his freedom from the lawsuits in medium.com post, where he pointed out he’d kept his promise to “protect isoHunt users’ rights and privacy in not disclosing any user data such as email and IP addresses in legal discovery from plaintiffs, which might be used for trolling and extortion.”

After offering tongue-in-cheek congratulations to “Hollywood and CRIA on their victories,” he quelled any concerns that he may now be gun-shy about continued subversive app development. “As I’ve realized through the years, there are many industries to disrupt with internet software besides the media industry,” he proclaimed, going on to tease his new idea: ‘App to Automate Googling’ or ‘AAG.’ What do you want to bet Google CEO Sundar Pichai already has his finger on the speed dial button for their lawyers?