Feds Seize KickassTorrents Domains, Arrest Alleged Owner

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I wanted to make a "owner of KickassTorrents arrested, heading to PoundassPrison" joke but the article does say he is the "alleged" owner and I don't want to make fun of the wrong guy. I also noticed that Apple and Facebook had a hand in helping catch the guy.

The U.S. Government has arrested the alleged owner of KickassTorrents, the world's largest torrent site. The 30-year-old Ukrainian was arrested in Poland today and is charged with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. In addition, a federal court in Chicago has ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names.
 
I use RARBG far more than KAT anyway. Not a big loss IMO. It was getting to the point where most of the good torrents on KAT were just links to RARBG torrents.
 
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I was reading that yesterday after realizing wtf where is my kat? They apparently got him on some kind banking trail, crumbs.
 
I guess ISOHunt is already hosting a mirror of the last year and a half worth of stuff from KAT.

That didn't take long. :p
 
Here’s a tip: If you happen to find yourself at the helm of a gigantic illegal torrenting operation, don’t use an Apple email, and for the love of all that is holy do not use Facebook. Why the smartest people on this planet make the dumbest mistakes is beyond me!
 
chaikovski2002 said:
Here’s a tip: If you happen to find yourself at the helm of a gigantic illegal torrenting operation, don’t use an Apple email, and for the love of all that is holy do not use Facebook. Why the smartest people on this planet make the dumbest mistakes is beyond me!
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Well to be fair, he couldn't have been that smart to run one of the largest torrent sites in ze world. It's a feat, but not exactly a smart feat considering he's in fed custody now lol.
 
The whole point (with all the obvious ignorance aside) is that hosting a torrent indexing site is not really illegal - there's no actual statute that I'm aware of anywhere on this planet that says providing a searchable index of text files is breaking the law. If there is, that law would obviously apply towards Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and every other search index of any kind that exists or operates on the Internet as we know it today.

They're going after this person for actually illegal things (or illegal as they define them) and are using that as grounds to gain access to his control over KAT and the servers in use, that's it.

But then again, these "idiots in charge" just have to give themselves something to pat each other on their backs for, I guess.
 
Tiberian said:
The whole point (with all the obvious ignorance aside) is that hosting a torrent indexing site is not really illegal - there's no actual statute that I'm aware of anywhere on this planet that says providing a searchable index of text files is breaking the law. If there is, that law would obviously apply towards Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and every other search index of any kind that exists or operates on the Internet as we know it today.

They're going after this person for actually illegal things (or illegal as they define them) and are using that as grounds to gain access to his control over KAT and the servers in use, that's it.

But then again, these "idiots in charge" just have to give themselves something to pat each other on their backs for, I guess.
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But but but copyright claims!!!!!

DukenukemX said:
And.... it's back again.

KAT - Kickass Torrents
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I love their notice when you go to the site. It reminds me of the arrests of "so called"racists, but not the rapists.
 
pothb said:
But but but copyright claims!!!!!
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Which is precisely my point: this post I'm making right now, the specific words I'm typing to make it what it is, will be indexed by Google and other search engines probably within 30 minutes of me posting it. While I don't own the copyright - [H]ardForum does, per the TOS here - from a legal standpoint if Kyle chose to do so he could literally sue Google for copyright infringement (to a degree) once they index this post and the contents of it. I know there's been a lot of talk about that over the years that Internet search engines have been around but, literally what happens is the Googlebot hits a site, grabs the text from it, copies that and indexes it and even provides small chunks of it during a search result display and that's literally the definition of copyright infringement right there.

Literally in black (ok, dark grey) and white. :D
 
wouldnt suprise me for the govt to put it back up and track everyone that downloads a file or clicks a magnet link
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
I use RARBG far more than KAT anyway. Not a big loss IMO. It was getting to the point where most of the good torrents on KAT were just links to RARBG torrents.
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Yeah shutting down torrent sites is ultimately just a big whack-a-mole game....with infinite moles.
 
I'm curious how strong the evidence will be if this guy stays quiet. An IP# does not equal guilty to me in a criminal case.

He could have just been the community manager.
 
What we've learned today is to not use Apple iPhone cause the police will come for dat ass.
 
Spidey329 said:
I'm curious how strong the evidence will be if this guy stays quiet. An IP# does not equal guilty to me in a criminal case.

He could have just been the community manager.
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That'd be interesting. Though, they might to put collusion onto him if they can't get anything else.
 
Snakebyt said:
wouldnt suprise me for the govt to put it back up and track everyone that downloads a file or clicks a magnet link
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I'm not sure they'd actually get any more data than they would from just observing IP addresses by connecting to torrents/trackers, and there is no way they have the resources to prosecute millions of people.

That being said that new "kickass" doesn't seem to have any torrents newer than 3-4 months old so it basically appears to be an old backup of the site.
 
So, he is (presumably) a Ukrainian citizen, and he was in Poland at the time of the arrest. How exactly does the US have jurisdiction here?
 
Despite doing nothing illegal, nothing immoral our Govs (its not just the US) are spending stupid amounts of the peoples $ chasing folks like this. For nothing at all, its not like closing one or two or three of four hundred torrent sites is going to change anything. Cut off one head two more shall take its... you get it. :)

Perhaps its time Western (US in particular) citizens start demanding their elected officials start funneling our money to take care of our real social issues. We have 22% of American children living in poverty and the Feds are playing spy games chasing Ukraine citizens hosting text files. So the guy running one of the largest torrent sites in the world is making a few million a year in LEGIT not at all illegal advert sales, and our leaders are going to allow a very rich lobby convince them to spend 100x that amount chasing catching extraditing trying housing for years (cause we all know how this ends) and then eventually spending even more money deporting. What a sad sad joke this all is. I wonder how many of those 16 million children living in poverty are going to grow up understanding the value of a dollar and choose to torrent.
 
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