EA, Nintendo, Playstation, and Ubisoft Launch Attack on KickAss Torrents

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which has EA, Nintendo, Playstation, and Ubisoft as its members, has reported a number of torrent sites to the US government, specifically highlighting popular site KickAss Torrents as the largest portal for video game piracy.

In a letter the ESA wrote to the US Director of Intellectual Property and Innovation, it says, “we regard the “Notorious Markets” out-of-cycle review as an important opportunity to shed light on markets that facilitate piracy or counterfeiting of industry products and services.”

“The ‘Kickass Torrents’ torrent indexing site (kickass.to) has changed domains repeatedly in the recent past in response to enforcement efforts, and is currently accessible at the domain ‘kat.cr’,”the letter continues. “It is the most well-trafficked torrent indexing site in the world, and as its Alexa ranking indicates, one of the most popular websites of any kind on the Internet.”

The ESA says that it recognises that taking down a website is not an effective solution to the problem, implicitly suggesting that harsher actions be taken, and expresses its concern over the proliferation of  “pirate servers” that target subscription-based game sites.

“When users are diverted to play on such servers, game publishers are not able to monetize their online games as described above and thus face reduced opportunities to recoup their investment in creating the online game,” the ESA adds.

By the end of the year, the US Trade Representative will collate submissions from the ESA, MPAA, and RIAA to form a master list of piracy sites, with global action planned to follow.

Thank you TorrentFreak for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Softpedia.