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The U.S. has dealt a major blow to KickassTorrents, one of the world’s most popular illegal files-sharing websites.
On Wednesday, law enforcement in Poland arrested the alleged owner of the site, 30 year-old Artem Vaulin of Ukraine.
He's been charged with criminal copyright infringement, and the U.S. Department of Justice said it was seeking to extradite him to the U.S. The DOJ also seized several domains associated with the service, although the main site appeared to be still running Wednesday afternoon.
KickassTorrents, also known as KAT, has distributed well over $1 billion in copyrighted materials, prosecutors said. Since 2008, the service has run a directory for downloading pirated movies, TV shows, music and more using the BitTorrent protocol.
Fifty million unique users visit the site every month, the department alleges.
Vaulin, who went by the screen name "tirm," is believed to have designed KickassTorrents' original website and overseen its operations.
"During the latter part of the conspiracy, Vaulin allegedly operated KAT under the auspices of a Ukrainian-based front company called Cryptoneat," the DOJ added.
To evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly moved his domains to servers across the world, following repeated seizures and lawsuits. Courts in the U.K., Italy and Malaysia have blocked the site.
Vaulin was also charged with money laundering. The file-sharing site generated up to $22.3 million in annual advertising revenue, the U.S. alleged.
It's unclear what the DOJ will do with the domains it has seized, which include kickasstorrents.com, kastatic.com, thekat.tv, kat.cr, kickass.cr, kickass.to and kat.ph.
Law enforcement agencies have also targeted The Pirate Bay, another illegal file-sharing site. In Dec. 2014, police raided its servers, though the site was only temporarily shut down.
source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3098408/legal/us-seizes-domains-of-kickasstorrents-sites-owner-arrested.html
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Quoting some dude from TechCrunch:
Lesson of the day: Don't buy stuff from Apple. Where it's good for their image they gladly "fight for the freedom of their users" but don't mind helping the feds where it supports their business model. Just so true.
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the two aren't mutually exclusive. if you value your freedom you shouldn't break the law. I don't mind people torrenting the same as I don't mind 20 year olds drinking in the US, but both are risks with consequences.
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On July 21 2016 22:35 Djagulingu wrote:Quoting some dude from TechCrunch: Show nested quote +Lesson of the day: Don't buy stuff from Apple. Where it's good for their image they gladly "fight for the freedom of their users" but don't mind helping the feds where it supports their business model. Just so true. Ultimately he didn't get caught because he bought music from Apple, he got caught because he made the stupid mistake of running a facebook page for KAT. That's what opened him up to having his IP compared with the data from various online retailers. We don't know that only Apple cooperated, could very well be that he simply didn't buy anything online in that timeframe from the other companies the authorities asked this of.
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On July 21 2016 23:19 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2016 22:35 Djagulingu wrote:Quoting some dude from TechCrunch: Lesson of the day: Don't buy stuff from Apple. Where it's good for their image they gladly "fight for the freedom of their users" but don't mind helping the feds where it supports their business model. Just so true. Ultimately he didn't get caught because he bought music from Apple, he got caught because he made the stupid mistake of running a facebook page for KAT. That's what opened him up to having his IP compared with the data from various online retailers. We don't know that only Apple cooperated, could very well be that he simply didn't buy anything online in that timeframe from the other companies the authorities asked this of. He had a facebook page? Here is my illegal site for illegal stuff on the most main stream, establishment website on the internet.
This furthers my belief that the people running most of these torrent and pirate websites are not the geniuses people make them out to be.
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It's still bullshit on the part of both Facebook and Apple.
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On July 21 2016 23:29 jimminy_kriket wrote: It's still bullshit on the part of both Facebook and Apple. Why? What do they care if some random torrent site is shut down? They work with the companies and businesses to create those products and not with him. He provides zero value to Apple or Facebook in any way. If the FBI comes knocking asking for help, there is zero reason for Apple or Facebook to say no.
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On July 21 2016 23:29 jimminy_kriket wrote: It's still bullshit on the part of both Facebook and Apple.
Because they shouldn't do anything to prevent pirating? To catch the guy running a giant pirating website? Why would they refrain from doing anything from a guy who is illegally ripping them off for huge amounts of money?
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We already suffer enough because of Denovu...
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Never heard of the site... But I assume it'll be as affected as TPB, ie up again in a couple of days? Did this site also do the trick of torrenting the source code for the site?
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Ive used the site many times. I use an aggregate torrent search site that brings up many individual sites that have what I want. I still dont understand the anti piracy efforts. Its not like I was going to pay for the stuff if I couldnt find it for free. So if the company was going to get nothing from me anyway, why does it matter? Seriously. It doesnt make sense.
Edit: want to clarify that people making money from piracy should be strung up, but the average user isnt doing anything negative.
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On July 22 2016 02:00 Ayaz2810 wrote: Ive used the site many times. I use an aggregate torrent search site that brings up many individual sites that have what I want. I still dont understand the anti piracy efforts. Its not like I was going to pay for the stuff if I couldnt find it for free. So if the company was going to get nothing from me anyway, why does it matter? Seriously. It doesnt make sense. Because they want it shut down? Also the people who run these pirate sites are normally not the most upstanding citizens and have other side activities that are more harmful. Also this isn’t the content holders, it’s the FBI and local law enforcement.
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you're literally saying stealing has no negative impacts. replace torrents with a TV from a retail store.
if I could steal it I would. but if I can't I won't buy it because it's expensive.
I assume what you're failing to notice here is the distinction of how you value a product as opposed to the owner. you're valuation of the shit you're stealing is $0 for some reason. as if it was cheap to produce a $10MM movie.
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On July 22 2016 02:04 brian wrote: you're literally saying stealing has no negative impacts. replace torrents with a TV from a retail store.
if I could steal it I would. but if I can't I won't buy it because it's expensive. The counter argument is that nothing physical is stolen, so there is no harm. But there is no proof there is zero harm, only that the level of harm is difficult to accurately calculate.
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yea. tried to address that in my edit after realizing the obvious retort. there is obvious harm in that they aren't getting paid for the product that is being obtained. having the product be tangible in order to 'feel' like I'm stealing something sounds pretty silly to me.
if someone develops a website for me and I never pay him, did I really steal something?
reply: yes, his time.
oh, so whatever i'm torrenting came free of any time investment on those who stand to receive your money.
so on and so forth.
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On July 22 2016 02:04 brian wrote: you're literally saying stealing has no negative impacts. replace torrents with a TV from a retail store.
if I could steal it I would. but if I can't I won't buy it because it's expensive.
I assume what you're failing to notice here is the distinction of how you value a product as opposed to the owner. you're valuation of the shit you're stealing is $0 for some reason. as if it was cheap to produce a $10MM movie. if i pirate a product that i otherwise wouldn't buy anyway, there's no real or potential loss at all to the owner.
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On July 22 2016 02:00 Ayaz2810 wrote: Its not like I was going to pay for the stuff if I couldnt find it for free. So if the company was going to get nothing from me anyway, why does it matter? Seriously. It doesnt make sense. .
It's quite the proclamation to assume no significant number of people who pirate wouldn't buy it if they couldn't pirate. Maybe they would, but they would rather get it free. That's a pretty easy motive to contemplate, and we have as much reason to believe there's a significant number of people who would follow that path as we do to believe your claim.
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On July 22 2016 02:27 -NegativeZero- wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2016 02:04 brian wrote: you're literally saying stealing has no negative impacts. replace torrents with a TV from a retail store.
if I could steal it I would. but if I can't I won't buy it because it's expensive.
I assume what you're failing to notice here is the distinction of how you value a product as opposed to the owner. you're valuation of the shit you're stealing is $0 for some reason. as if it was cheap to produce a $10MM movie. if i pirate a product that i otherwise wouldn't buy anyway, there's no real or potential loss at all to the owner. Yes, but if you provide a service for people to pirate things, people who would buy it on sale might just steal it instead. Which is why they shut down the people who host these sites.
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It's time for corporations to update their business models. The entire premise of being in the dark about products until after you've bought them is outdated as hell. I don't want to waste any of my hard earned money on shitty products.
I pirate to judge quality. If it's really good à la game of thrones season 1-4, I buy the DVDs when they come out.
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On July 22 2016 02:27 -NegativeZero- wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2016 02:04 brian wrote: you're literally saying stealing has no negative impacts. replace torrents with a TV from a retail store.
if I could steal it I would. but if I can't I won't buy it because it's expensive.
I assume what you're failing to notice here is the distinction of how you value a product as opposed to the owner. you're valuation of the shit you're stealing is $0 for some reason. as if it was cheap to produce a $10MM movie. if i pirate a product that i otherwise wouldn't buy anyway, there's no real or potential loss at all to the owner. I feel the only distinction here between this and not paying my web developer is the assumption that a company can't have a value set on its time invested because it's not an individual?
is that correct?
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