Limewire, ISOHunt, PirateBay and the future of P2P

Wishful thinking?

It is perhaps an indication of how times have changed that the content industries have won some decisive legal battles in court against Limewire, isoHunt and the PirateBay, yet these have not prompted the same level of scrutiny that previous cases have.

The reason for this is quite simple. Whoever thinks that the legal victories against these services will dent P2P usage is seriously deluded. Limewire for example belongs to an era long gone in file-sharing terms, it was the client-based model of P2P which provided a centralised home for infringement, and therefore it was an easy target for litigation. isoHunt and the Pirate Bay are where the file-sharing action is, but these services are not at all similar to clients such as Limewire.

Take isoHunt for example, it is a torrent indexing site which does not host the torrents, it merely links users to where torrents can be found. The injunction against the service has definitely crippled the service in the U.S., although it is hosted in the United States Canada. The injunction was very specific about the nature of the service, and it found that the site’s owners “engaged in purposeful, culpable expression and conduct aimed at promoting infringing uses of the websites.” However, the service is still running, and I was able to find links to infringing torrents as of writing this post. Yet even if isoHunt is taken down tomorrow, there are still several services waiting in the wings.

Similarly, The Pirate Bay appears to be unsinkable. After being taken down by injunctions against their servers in Germany, the Pirate Bay resurfaced with bandwidth provided by the Swedish Pirate Party. In a game of cyber-cat and cyber-mouse, the Pirate Bay continues to laugh in the face of injunctions, and its loyal and technologically savvy base seems determined to maintain the iconic service running come what may. And yet again, there can be little doubt that if the Pirate Bay disappeared tomorrow, others would take its place.

This is the conundrum facing the content industries. Do they continue allocating resources to fighting the unbeatable P2P hydra, or do they give up and invest in other business models? It may surprise some people that I feel sorry for copyright owners. I strongly believe that creators have a right to remuneration, and I can empathise with some of the arguments put forward by authors who see their livelihoods affected. But then again, many of us following and chronicling the copyfight have been urging the industry to explore new business models, as it is unlikely that they will win this war in the courts. They will win many legal battles, but the war has been lost for many years now. The usual reference to clichés involving genies, bottles and boxes apply.

I do not expect some sectors of the content industries to give up, and I am heartened by signs that some people do get it, and know that the markets have shifted, and revenue streams are to be found elsewhere. How many pyrrhic victories will it take for the rest of the industry to decide that the battle lies elsewhere?