Feds Seize KickassTorrents Domains, Arrest Owner

[Pahly]

I'm lost for words. KAT has been my home for 3+ years. I had one of the biggest profiles on the site. not bragging it's just the amount of work I did there. I have been visiting KAT everyday since 2013 (literally) I miss my friends. I miss everybody.

[Sid]

Read this what mainly happen....

Well, perhaps, but remember that is one version of the story, told by one side.

Don't believe everything the forces of darkness tell you.

There are already sites popping up claiming to be the new kat, and while most of us know better, some will be taken in. Don't trust any site claiming to be the official kat site, and don't submit your kat log in details to anyone.

Excellent point Spud.

When the real KAT really returns, we (and TorrentFreak) will let you know. Until you read it there or here (posted by one of our Admins) DO NOT BE TAKEN IN BY ANY SITE CLAIMING TO BE KAT. Not even if the old KAT domains suddenly spring to life--they're compromised.

[Pahly]

They should have arrested most of those wanker shits with titles like 'Super User', instead of the owner...most are just a bunch of useless twats ass kissing higher ups and being little PC cunts. I don't want to see the site go down, but with their history of DMCA 'compliance', bad site security (especially their SSL config, which was half assed), ranking thousands of mostly useless scumbags as Mods, SU's and other feel-good titles being handed out like candy, it's no wonder they lived a fugitive, constantly on-the-run existence which ended this way it has today.

I was Super User there for 3 years. I believe you have it all wrong. though at times it may seem that way but we are a strong community. status no status.


"SU's and other feel-good titles being handed out like candy" lol I worked my ass off on that site for the joy of it not the title. I done over 25000 comment reports, reported over 2000 users, added over 9000 summaries, changed over 150 thousand torrent categories, uploaded over 1500 torrents (not dumping) the list goes on. minus the status I did it because I enjoyed it.
Your whole "rant" gives off the person you are. it seems you were ill-treated by one and have assumed we are all like that. not at all.

A**holes come in all shapes in sizes. status no status an a**hole is an a**hole.

[Sid]

Don't worry--different site, different rules--you can call the asshole an asshole here.

Which is not to say he is entirely wrong: KAT was an EXTREMELY status conscious site. In addition to the cheevos, and copious rep, there were private groups, at least a dozen different member classes each with different rights, and threads reserved for the different classes to reply to, etc.

We have very little of that here and we try hard to keep it to a minimum. All members are equal on the forum, and can see everything. Everyone can upload, though torrents uploaded by normal members aren't visible for 30 minutes, and cannot appear in the Top 100 lists. The only privilege VIP's get is not having to fill in capcha when uploading.

[AncientRome]

I was never a fan of KAT especially after a moderator banned me for no good reason.

I continued to upload there because they had the most traffic and I wanted my torrents to be shared as widely as possible

Their crawler would've picked up your torrents anyway.

It means that complying with the DMCA is futile. Which I have been saying for years.

Seems like you wasted your time for no good reason.

And people (including major uploaders) wonder why we don't allow them to link to their Facebook pages.

Unfortunately, it has become increasingly popular for users to link their personal social media accounts to a torrent site. I have always been against this, but stupid people will do whatever they want even if you advise them not to.
Trying to understand the mind of an idiot is like playing with fire.

[Ruler_Of_Hell]

Their "DMCA regime" didn't save them but it wasn't bullshit. Unlike you ignorant and ungrateful freeloaders, torrent site owners risk jail time. They're perfectly entitled to do whatever they want to try to reduce that risk.

I'll admit I never expected for a moment that it would work but it's not like they misled anyone about it. Everyone uploading there knew full well that their torrents were subject to deletion without notice. Their forums were full of threads of hash values that uploaders' maintained in parallel with their torrent uploads for precisely that reason.

Yea, So Damn Glad that torrent uploaders don't face the same penalties as Site Owners, (Insert Sarcasm Here) Only difference is uploaders spend hundreds if not thousands of Dollars a Month risking their asses while KAT owners "Hid" NOT behind Safe Harbor getting Rich. OK We do it for the love of sharing but sometimes it just all gets to be too much.

Yes, We All make Stupid mistakes and that's why I burn through at least two Tags a Year. Can't do nuthin bout Cached copies but at least get off the radar. Going by later posts I know Phaly is one of the good guys, He's helped Some of My personalities several times with Android Apps. Thanks Mate

Oh yea, and carjacker really is an asshole

[Mike]

So just as the US government itself is accused of being engaged in massive copyright infringement itself, the Justice Department proudly announces that it has charged the owner of Kickass Torrents with criminal copyright infringement claims. The site has also been seized and the owner, Artem Vaulin, has been arrested in Poland. As with the original Kim Dotcom/Megaupload indictment, the full criminal complaint against Vaulin is worth reading.

As with the case against Dotcom/Megaupload, the DOJ seems to ignore the fact that there is no such thing as secondary liability in criminal infringement. That's a big concern. Even though Kickass Torrents does not host the actual infringing files at all, the complaint argues that Vaulin is still legally responsible for others doing so. But that's not actually how criminal copyright infringement works. The complaint barely even shows how Vaulin could be liable for the infringement conducted via Kickass Torrents.

But, of course, that doesn't matter because the guy at Homeland Security Investigations (formerly: ICE: Immigrations & Customs Enforcement) just spoke to the MPAA and the MPAA said that Kickass Torrents had no permission to link to their content. Yes, link.

As part of the investigation, I have communicated with representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) regarding this investigation. The representatives provided me with information the MPAA had developed about KAT, among other websites. The representatives stated that the MPAA closely monitors KAT and that a significant portion of the movies available on KAT are protected by copyright. The representatives also specified that the MPAA has not granted permission to KAT to index, link, frame, transmit, retransmit, provide access to, or otherwise aid or assist those who distribute and reproduce infringing copies of copyrighted motion picture or television content of MPAA members.

Here's the thing: most of those things listed above are not rights granted by the copyright act. The copyright act is pretty specifically limited to a few rights, including reproduction and distribution. But, again, note the games played in the complaint: "index, link, frame, transmit, retransmit, provide access to" don't directly infringe on the stated copyright exclusive rights (yes, there are some cases where some of the above may infringe on some of the exclusive rights, but it's not particularly cut and dry). So instead, the government tosses in this "otherwise aid or assist those who distribute and reproduce infringing copies of copyrighted motion picture or television content."

So, you see, once again, the government is creating a form of secondary liability for copyright infringement that does not exist in the law. That's a problem. Because that's not how criminal copyright law works. At all.

Furthermore, the complaint goes on about how KAT, as it calls Kickass Torrents, rejected DMCA takedown notices for a variety of reasons, but leaves out the fact that KAT is not an American company and is not under the jurisdiction of US laws. So I'm not entirely clear why US copyright laws apply here. The best they can do is note that they found a few servers that were apparently in Chicago.

The complaint spends lots of time on the fact that KAT makes a fair bit of money from advertising revenue. But, again, I'm not entirely clear how that's relevant to the claim of criminal copyright infringement. The implicit argument is clearly "people go to KAT to get infringing content, the site makes advertising from all that traffic, thus the revenue is ill-gotten gains." But... again that relies on the idea that KAT itself is engaged in criminal behavior. Creating a popular tool for finding content -- some of which may be infringing -- and then making money from advertising, are separate things. It seems wrong to make this weird if->then conditional assumption that just because the site made lots of money it was infringing.

No one is suggesting that Kickass Torrents was not regularly used by individuals to infringe on copyrights. It was. A lot. And you can argue how horrible that is and how it was killing Hollywood and all that -- but the specifics here do matter. The same arguments were made about the VCR for years. After all, the MPAA insisted that it was used exclusively to infringe on content for years until they finally realized that it was a good idea to release content for the home video market. And, again, the US government isn't allowed to make up criminal liability concepts that aren't actually in the law. They, and their supporters, of course will now argue that it's not about secondary liability, but about "aiding and abetting." But that argument doesn't fly either. The standards for aiding and abetting are much more involved -- and would require that the actual infringement be criminal. But that won't fly, because the individuals downloading via Kickass Torrents weren't violating criminal copyright law themselves.

In other words, the DOJ is trying to argue that helping a bunch of people engaged in civil copyright infringement magically turns into criminal aiding and abetting. But that's not how the law works.

Meanwhile, the DOJ's press release on this is filled with all the usual insane bluster:

"Copyright infringement exacts a large toll, a very human one, on the artists and businesses whose livelihood hinges on their creative inventions," said U.S. Attorney Fardon. "Vaulin allegedly used the Internet to cause enormous harm to those artists. Our Cybercrimes unit at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago will continue to work with our law enforcement partners around the globe to identify, investigate and prosecute those who attempt to illegally profit from the innovation of others."

Funny. Is he also going to charge the US Navy for its massive copyright infringement? Or is that not the kind of copyright infringement harm Fardon goes after?

"Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials," said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. "In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits. His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice."

The $1 billion of copyrighted materials is a nice touch, but again represents merely the estimated cover price, not any actual losses to the industry. Not that the DOJ wants to admit that. But the next guy is even worse, no longer just claiming that over $1 billion was distributed, but directly stating that Vaulin stole $1 billion.

"Artem Vaulin was allegedly running a worldwide digital piracy website that stole more than $1 billion in profits from the U.S. entertainment industry," said Executive Associate Director Edge. "Protecting legitimate commerce is one of HSI’s highest priorities. With the cooperation of our law enforcement partners, we will continue to aggressively bring to justice those who enrich themselves by stealing the creative work of U.S. artists."

Aren't law enforcement people supposed to actually know the law? There was no stealing. There may have been copyright infringement using the tool that Vaulin built, but that's not stealing.

"Investigating cyber-enabled schemes is a top priority for CI," said Chief Weber. "Websites such as the one seized today brazenly facilitate all kinds of illegal commerce. Criminal Investigation is committed to thoroughly investigating financial crimes, regardless of the medium. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to unravel this and other complex financial transactions and money laundering schemes where individuals attempt to conceal the true source of their income and use the Internet to mask their true identity."

Illegal commerce? It was basically a search engine for free content. What illegal commerce happened there?

Yes, yes, lots of infringement happened via the site. No one denies that. But having law enforcement folks stand up and make clueless statements like this suggest they don't even understand what Kickass Torrents did, and they just want to puff themselves up and look good for Hollywood.


Meanwhile: does anyone really believe that this move will cause anyone who used KAT to suddenly go back to purchasing movies?


Permalink

[zMTz]

Typical US playing world policeman.

Really does show that KATs DMCA stance was pointless. They shouldn't have even tried to comply. Still felt the force regardless. I predicted this would happen about 3 years ago.

[Carjacker]

They should have arrested most of those wanker shits with titles like 'Super User', instead of the owner...most are just a bunch of useless twats ass kissing higher ups and being little PC cunts. I don't want to see the site go down, but with their history of DMCA 'compliance', bad site security (especially their SSL config, which was half assed), ranking thousands of mostly useless scumbags as Mods, SU's and other feel-good titles being handed out like candy, it's no wonder they lived a fugitive, constantly on-the-run existence which ended this way it has today.

I was Super User there for 3 years. I believe you have it all wrong. though at times it may seem that way but we are a strong community. status no status.


"SU's and other feel-good titles being handed out like candy" lol I worked my ass off on that site for the joy of it not the title. I done over 25000 comment reports, reported over 2000 users, added over 9000 summaries, changed over 150 thousand torrent categories, uploaded over 1500 torrents (not dumping) the list goes on. minus the status I did it because I enjoyed it.
Your whole "rant" gives off the person you are. it seems you were ill-treated by one and have assumed we are all like that. not at all.

A**holes come in all shapes in sizes. status no status an a**hole is an a**hole.

You seem to be taking this personally - I guess,if you feeling buttsore, as the old saying goes, "If the shoe fits...". You seem to not understand the small, but crucial, word(s) in my post - see where I say 'most/mostly', so take your butthurt self pity,self back-patting, arse out of my way. As I look at it in the case of SU titled KAT people, most just spammed comments, posted trivial, useless - often times, dangerous - advice/help, etc. in order to collect those little pez rep points to make up for something lacking in their own lonely RL existence. You think it is really hard work reporting on people/comments or copy/pasting movie summaries, etc? Try a real job. IMO, I think you enjoyed it more for the sense of power you felt over others than for any sense of actually helping the community. Im glad that TPB doesn't give out skulls/titles the way that KAT gave out titles and forum power - you actually have to work to prove yourself, not be all PC and brown nosing for rep points.
Have a great day.

[zMTz]

Yeah the rep whoring on KAT and overuse of emoticons was terrible