KickassTorrents, the world’s most used torrent site, has been seized by the US government, and its owner, Artem Vaulin, has been arrested in Poland, awaiting extradition. While Vaulin’s arrest is limited to his involvement with KAT, should the case result in a prosecution it could give US courts extended powers to take down every torrent site currently online.
According to a Department of Justice report, KAT is the 69th most visited website in the world, with 50 million unique visitors per month. From a criminal perspective, the sheer volume of visitors indicates copyright infringement on a massive scale, while the site generates around $17 million in advertising revenue annually.
“Websites such as the one seized today [KAT] brazenly facilitate all kinds of illegal commerce,” Richard Weber, chief of the IRS’ Criminal Investigation unit, in a prepared statement (via Wired). “[We are] committed to thoroughly investigating financial crimes, regardless of the medium.”
Vaulin is charged with copyright infringement and money laundering. Should he be found guilty, he could face up to 30 years in prison, though tech lawyer Ira Rothken, who defended Kim Dotcom in the Megaupload case in 2012, feels that the copyright infringement charges are baseless.
“We’re not aware of any case in the history of the United States where hyperlinking, or the use of torrent files, was ever found to be direct [copyright] infringement,” Rothken told Wired. “In my view, without direct infringement you can’t have a criminal infringement.”
“There are no content files on KickassTorrents,” he added. “They’re just linking information.”
While Rothken concedes that criminal charges against Vaulin are unlikely to succeed, he does warn that, should they be upheld, every other torrent site online is potentially at risk.
“There’s no doubt that this has the tell-tale signs of a test criminal case,” Rothken admitted. “If the defense prevails, then the Department of Justice can point to this scenario to tell Congress there may be a need to update the criminal copyright laws.”
The only piracy that needs to be stopped is the Gaming/Software piracy.
Hollywood and the Music industry need to stop making content for profit. Musicians for example should only make music for the love of music. Not to get rich and famous! The same goes for Hollywood. If you make a movie you should want everyone to view it. If you love this creation so much you wouldn’t care one bit about piracy. But it’s all about the profits for these scumbags.
Musicians blast their music over the public airwaves (radio) put their music in television commercials and movies.
And they expect us to keep paying for it? Umm no..
They are still selling cds and dvds, concerts and merchandise. They make millions off a single music track. This is far more than any average person will ever obtain. And these greedy creators want more?
This goes for all creators YouTubers, Photographers, Artists, Musicians etc.. If you take a picture or make some art and post it online. Guess what? You pushed it into the PUBLIC SPACE! If you wanted exclusive rights to said content then how about only creating it for yourself and keeping it to yourself. I’m so sick of this bullshit they are trying to pull on us.
That is fucking retarded…
everyone behind a movie needs to be paid, ofcourse it will be about profit without this profit another film cannot be made. it’s not free to make a fucking movie.
a music artist needs to live too even if he does it because he loves what he does he still needs money to survive. Your argument is fucking retarded. If everyone pirated a movie how are they supposed to fucking pay their staff, rent whatever.
nice the retard deleted his comment.
Just because you are jealous of how much they make doesn’t mean they should stop selling. The only people who buys their copies is people who like their stuff.