After ten years of serving BitTorrent files to people across the world, Isohunt is shutting down its operations to avoid  going to trial against the MPAA. Founded by Canadian Gary Fung in 2003, he and his company would have been liable for potentially $600 million if they went to trial.

The company has agreed to pay the movie studios $110 million, despite estimates indicating that the company only has approximately $2-5 million. The MPAA estimated that Isohunt had approximately 44.2 million peers and 13.7 active torrents. Isohunt now joins other file sharing sites such as Napster, Kazaa, and Limewire that have shutdown.

“It’s sad to see my baby go. But I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. 10.5 years of isoHunt has been a long journey by any business definition, and forever in Internet startup time. It started as a programming hobby in my university days that has become so, so much more. It’s been a learning experience beyond what I imagined. I’ve done the best I could pushing the social benefits of BitTorrent and file sharing, the searching and sharing of culture itself, but it’s time for me to move on to new software ideas and projects.” writes Fung on his personal blog.

via Arstechnica

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