From the "oh by the way" department is news on isoHunt's legal battle against the movie industry. On May 20, Judge Stephen Wilson granted a permanent injunction against Gary Fung and his websites isoHunt.com, Podtropolis.com, TorrentBox.com, and ed2k-it.com. The injunction does not order Gary Fung to shut down any of these sites, however, it does require Gary to comply with an extensive list of conditions (such as filtering copyrighted works) that he must comply with if he wishes to remain online in the US. The practicality of this may prove impossible.

isoHunt's vast index of torrent files has been unavailable to US citizens since April 5, when Gary implemented Judge Wilson's previous injunction order. Since then, isoHunt lite has replaced the old indexing site for US users. The lite version of isoHunt still has a search engine, but only points to torrent files indexed or hosted by other sites.

What happens from here should be interesting. The order doesn't prohibit the movie industry from collecting damages, so that could be one of the next moves by the studios. However, Gary Fung and isoHunt are based in Canada where a relatively lax legal approach to file-sharing exists. How, or if, the movie industry can apply a US judgment against Gary should prove to be a remarkable next chapter.

Overall, isoHunt probably won't disappear completely - especially for those outside the US. According to the injunction, Gary has 14 days to comply with the injunction after receiving an electronic list of titles he must filter. Gary's will to apply such a crude implement into the heart of isoHunt may determine whether his site remains online in the US.

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