Gary Fung, Canadian founder of isoHunt Web Technologies (isoHunt), has settled his last remaining legal dispute after a decade of litigation with media and movie industries over the now defunct isoHunt search engine. Music Canada, formerly the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), had launched the action in 2006 after Fung refused to take down the engine that delivered indexes of torrent files that could be used in conjunction with peer-to-peer software to download music, movies and other files from other users’ computers.
The $66 million dollar settlement, endorsed by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, provides general damages in the amount of $55 million, punitive damages in the amount of $10 million, and costs in the amount of $1 million. The consent order also prohibits Fung from operating or enabling any file sharing sites in the future.
Fung settled another dispute in 2013 with the Motion Picture Association of America for $110 million after the US Court of Appeals upheld a finding that isoHunt was liable for inducing copyright infringement (see “US Court of Appeals Upholds Finding of Copyright Infringement Against Canadian-Based Torrent Site IsoHunt”, E-TIPS® Newsletter, Vol 11, No 18, March 27, 2013).
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