MPAA’s Court Ordered Piracy Filter Censors Many Legitimate Files

Following a US court decision BitTorrent search engine isoHunt was ordered to implement a site-wide keyword filter provided by the MPAA. At the time, isoHunt’s founder voiced concerns that this would lead to overfiltering, and it appears that he is right. Aside from Hollywood blockbusters, the broad filter also censors thousands of Creative Commons and public domain files.

As with most filtering systems, it is hard for the public to evaluate its performance when the list itself is secret. Perhaps it’s an idea to open up both the filtering source code as well as the list of banned keywords so the public can help spot abuse?