10 years of isoHunt, past and future

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:02 am

10 years of isoHunt. Jan. 22 to the day, when the domain was registered. When I started isoHunt during engineering school, I truly did not think I'd be working on it for 10 years, but here I am. Napster, Kazaa, Suprnova, LokiTorrent. Big names have come and gone, and the Internet has changed. One would think we the people of the Internet are losing to the copyright cartels, but I think different. I saw solidarity against tyranny in protests against SOPA, which did not pass (happy coincident that Internet Freedom Day, Jan. 18 when SOPA failed, is so close to our anniversary). I see musicians and filmmakers slowly but surely warming up to new possibilities of Internet distribution and promotion, abandoning notions of "1 download = 1 lost sale" in the physical age. Ideals of the Free Software movement and Creative Commons will face new challenges with 3D printed copies of physical objects, replicated from copyrightable digital designs. We are moving into the world of science fiction. Will copyright or even money be relics like in Star Trek, where all material scarcity and wants are gone, replicators can make anything needed, and holodecks can create any world imaginable? Too utopian perhaps, but if someone from 100 years ago is to look at technologies we have now, a lot of it maybe construed as magic too.

Without being strictly sentimental with the past or the future, there's a point I'm trying to make. I did not think I'd be working on isoHunt for 10 years, but I have. I'm imagining what the next 10 years should bring. Why am I still working on isoHunt? To quote Breaking Bad, am I "in the empire business", subverting the establishment? No, we are in the culture business. Culture, distilled into digital files, shared by people, on the Internet. In the culture business, there are creators, and there are consumers. In this age of "broadcasting yourself", we are often both creators as well as consumers. And in my ideal world, consumers will share what they want, freely, and creators will be promoted accordingly and compensated fairly. Minimal friction, and minimal middlemen in the way who doesn't help in connecting consumers directly with creators.

I've fought Hollywood's lawsuit for almost 7 years now, it's so ancient it's almost not even worth mentioning. Same goes with CRIA's lawsuit. I'm tired of this squabble and they trying to make me and isoHunt another scapegoat in their crusade of no historic meaning. The only way to move forward is together, with the creators. For the next 10 years, I'm imagining a reboot of isoHunt. From a mostly passive search engine, to a new system where you the consumer can be active participants in bringing creators on board, and you can frictionlessly contribute to the creators. I'm calling this isoHunt Spotlight for now, until we think of a better name. And this will be a new endeavour, a complement to isoHunt the search engine which will continue its mission of indexing any and all torrent links. What is Spotlight exactly? Think Kickstarter, Netflix, Spotify, Gamefly, Kindle Owners' Lending Library rolled into one, with global licensing from day one that only makes sense for the Internet. We are still in the planning stages of this thing, so we can use your thought and help in making this happen. If we can make such a system of frictionless funding, creating, consuming and sharing happen like I'm imagining, it's going to be beautiful. To get there, we’ll need to bring a lot more creators on board, together.

Oh, and we just passed half a million fans on our Facebook page. Along with the millions of users who have frequented isoHunt the last 10 years, thanks for your support! Cheers to the next 10.

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:11 am

10 years is a good run for any site. Happy 10 year Birthday !! Keep up the good fight... and we hope for 10 more years!! Cool

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:26 am

Congratulations IH, and happy 10th birthday isohunt! Wink

Heres to many more years, and looking forward to isoHunt Spotlight! Very Happy

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:31 am

Yay!!!! 10 years of Isohunt & still going strong Smile

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:41 am

Congratulations and thanks for creating such a great place for us all to enjoy. This is one of the best communities out there!! Here's to another great 10 years Cheers

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:53 am

Y'know, there are sites that have been here for twenty years and I wonder how they do it, what's their secret to success. Let's hope I'll be asking you that ten years from now. Wink

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 8:00 am

Happy 10th Birthday isohunt and I hope that many more birthdays are to come .Keep up the good work IH and your team Very Happy

Its on TorrentFreak now as well ..

Edit thetazzzz goes into TorrentFreak and sticks up for isohunt and its not the first time I have done that Wink

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 8:50 am

Happy 10th IsoHunt! Keep rocking the Internet like you're doing for 10 years now;
Congratulation on such an amazing birthday;
And hope your wish for the next 10 years to come will become reality!
Long live IH!

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 8:56 am

Muadib138 wrote:

Congratulations and thanks for creating such a great place for us all to enjoy. This is one of the best communities out there!! Here's to another great 10 years Cheers

I couldn't say it any better than that. Hear hear!

Maybe we should be looking at new t-shirt designs now... to celebrate this momentous occasion Smile

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 9:34 am

Long live ISOHUNT

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:19 am

Peeps on torrentfreak are slagging of isohunt and the way it run. Evil or Very Mad

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:47 am

well said IH and indeed we, and others need to move with the times...like the BB reference too

thank you for inventing this site and to all that help maintain it.....isohunt 4 eva!

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:54 am

Hats off IH, tis indeed a wondrous site - everything I learned about torrents, uploading, downloading, software - well everything and anything connected with online activities I learned from here so thanks IH for creating the site and thanks to the people, mostly thetazzzz and Disc Jockey Desmond, who put up with my lunacy and created the God I now am Wink

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:43 pm

Happy Birthday IsoHunt.

I think I am coming up on my 8 year Anniversary here.

I have spent most of my time/posting at IsoHunts sister site Torrentbox, which I think celebrates its 10 year anniversary in November of this year. Or at least that is when the very first member signed up.

I have watched many a member start out as a young kid, grow up and then fly away to start their new lives as adults.

I hope we are here having this conversaton when IsoHunt celebrates its 20 year anniversary. I imagine by then the world will be a much different place. I am sure it will become the United States of Earth, or the Planet China. Shocked

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 1:33 pm

Happy Birthday and congratulations Isohunt.

A big thank you to everyone involved in making this the site it is today.

Bow