IsoHunt inc. the Vancouver based company created by Gary Fung, is a search engine, however 95% of what is searched on isoHunt.com is essentially pirated content or unauthorized file sharing. On this site there are links to nearly 90 million files free to all. In allowing viewers to download whatever digital content they want, isohunt.com is among the 200 most popular websites of any kind.
The Site has been sued in California by Columbia Pictures however, back home the Canadian Recording Industry has been unsuccessful in demanding the company take down links to copyrighted material. This is because; a lot more tools are needed to disrupt piracy in Canada. The ability to force sites to remove copyrighted material without lengthy legal proceedings would be a good start.
Five of the most popular pirate sites are stationed in Canada, causing this country to earn a bad reputation as a world hub for illegal file-sharing websites and become a leader in Internet piracy. Barry Sookman, a partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP argues that Canada is seen as a country where laws against piracy are weak and non-existent. He goes on to say that “Canada is viewed as a pirate haven.”
After having been put on the Obama administrations priority watch list for piracy, it is easy to dismiss the U.S action, seeing as more than a quarter of the visitors to many of these sites are American. Regardless, Canada has consistently promised create copyright reform but has so far failed to do so.
Ottawa doesn’t deny the fact that updates regarding piracy laws are needed and has put forth some effort however it has only lead to a lot of talk and several reports, but no law.
The Harper government is attempting again to reform copyright laws and the Industry Minister Tony Clement wants to see a bill by the end of December.
In many other countries there are and explosion of legitimate download site, however they are not accessible in Canada. This is mainly because businesses are choosing to bypass the Canadian market because of licensing problems. If nothing is done more and more creative industry, who contribute a lot more to the economy the “BitTorrent” site will also shun Canada. Which intern will only hurt Canadians and not very many people are aware it’s happening.
