Under a court decision, BitTorrent search engine isoHunt was forced to introduce a keyword filter designed by the Motion Picture Association of America. isoHunt predicted that such move would lead to over filtering, and it was right. In addition to Hollywood blockbusters, the filter also blocks thousands of Creative Commons and public domain files. Of course, not all content creators like being inadvertently censored.

It’s been almost 3 years that the US District Court of California ordered isoHunt to start censoring its search results based on a list of thousands of keywords made up by the MPAA. Otherwise the website would have been closed in the United States. Earlier in 2013, the ruling was upheld by the appeals, so the filter is still in place.

At the moment, isoHunt is filtering its systems for thousands of film titles and blocking American visitors’ access to torrents containing specific keywords. However, this not only prevents visitors from accessing torrents linking to blockbusters, but also leads to a vast amount of collateral damage.

For example, a few days ago artist Elliot Wallace discovered that his music, shared with a Creative Commons license, is blocked for American visitors. Users trying to download his album see the error message, claiming that the content is censored upon the request of the US court. Of course, Wallace doesn’t want his music to be censored, but one of his tracks is unfortunately titled “In the Kingdom of the Undead”, which the MPAA deems infringing. While Elliot Wallace isn’t against anti-piracy measures, he feels that the filter in question hurts his ability to share his works.

It seems that the MPAA’s filtering system is far not perfect, because isoHunt has been forced to block thousands of unrelated torrents, mainly in the public domain. However, the industry argues the opposite and claims that the BitTorrent search engine is deliberately manipulating the filter to render it ineffective. As such, the Hollywood studios want isoHunt to turn over the filter’s source code and have already asked the court to punish the service for contempt. It seems that the industry simply pays no attention to artists complaining that the MPAA has mistakenly censored their works.