ArsTechnica seems to have the most detailed and best linked (PDF + DoJ press release) article as of now:<p><a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/07/kickasstorrents-alleged-founder-artem-vaulin-arrested-in-poland/" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/07/kickasstorrents-a...</a><p>Somewhat more/complementary details seem to be available on: <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/feds-seize-kickasstorrents-domains-charge-owner-160720/" rel="nofollow">https://torrentfreak.com/feds-seize-kickasstorrents-domains-...</a> — e.g. regarding methods:<p><i>[...] The complaint further reveals that the feds posed as an advertiser, which revealed a bank account associated with the site.</i><p><i>It also shows that Apple handed over personal details of Vaulin after the investigator cross-referenced an IP-address used for an iTunes transaction with an IP-address that was used to login to KAT’s Facebook account. [...]</i><p>Some aspects which seem interesting to me, from what is reported:<p>• that apparently KAT owner tried to shield off DMCA takedown requests (which I'd see as trying to affirm being legal);<p>• that according to the articles he seems to not have used Tor (or fumbled in it).<p>(Assuming no parallel construction and that he's actually the guy, etc. etc.)<p>EDIT: I couldn't really find any Polish sources — suppose because it's middle of the night here... (the single article — <a href="http://www.dobreprogramy.pl/Zalozyciel-Kickass-Torrents-zatrzymany-przez-polska-policje-chce-go-amerykanska-prokuratura,News,74921.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dobreprogramy.pl/Zalozyciel-Kickass-Torrents-zatr...</a> — seems to be written based on the above English-language ones)
As an American, I wish we would stop doing this. It isn't effective, and it's a waste of time/resources that could be better spent elsewhere.<p>I'd even argue that its counter-effective to progress. Instead of punishing people for making more efficient systems, we should reward them, and try to integrate.
It seems like a lot of the most well-known pseudo-legal BitTorrent "groups" (PopcornTime, YIFY, ISOHunt, now Kat) turn out to be one-man shops, and as such, just completely dissolve as soon as their owner crosses paths with law enforcement. In some cases, these services are integral enough to the "scene" to be brought back by others. But other times, everything just stops for a while.<p>This seems like a bus-factor problem. Why does it keep happening? Why aren't these sites being run by multi-national teams that can survive a loss like this?<p>Even The Pirate Bay is "just" Swedish, so a sufficiently-motivated Swedish Government <i>could</i> shut TPB down. Meanwhile, there's no single country that could shut down e.g. Wikipedia.
Aside from the legal technicalities here, I mostly ponder the future of IP. I think Napster positively affected the music distribution world in the long run. I am not very black-and-white on this issue, however, since there are many contradictions by both sides.<p>I read the majority of comments here on HN about dated business models, big corporation dislike, the old executives don't understand the new market, etc..., but then a young indie artist in LA finds out Zara the clothing retailer has obviously copied her designs, and the lynch mobs are out to boycott Zara, send letters and other things to Zara and their attorneys. [1]<p>I have not inquired directly, but I am guessing a number of the indie artist's supporters have downloaded a torrent or two. How do they morally distinguish the two, or how does anybody who is against copyright or property rights of IP?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriasanusi/an-independent-artist-has-accused-zara-of-stealing-her-desig?utm_term=.duwxvQBeek#.hr3OM54qqg" rel="nofollow">https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriasanusi/an-independent-artis...</a>
The cat and mouse game continues.<p>Remember The Pirate Bay?<p>Why don't studios have their own similar sites where they
allow free torrents of some shows and offer paid torrents.<p>As a busy person, I'd much rather pay for something which guarantees:<p>- high quality
- no subtitles
- no buffering issues
- no viruses
- click and play
I find it interesting that a Polish man was charged by US laws, rather than under Polish law.<p>I think he opened himself to US law by hosting the servers at one point in the US. Regardless, it is rather fascinating that his first visit to the US could potentially be from extradition.
> Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said that KickassTorrents helped to distribute over $1 billion in pirated files.<p>So, two or three files, by Hollywood accounting.
> It also shows that Apple handed over personal details of Vaulin after the investigator cross-referenced an IP-address used for an iTunes transaction with an IP-address that was used to login to KAT’s Facebook account.<p>I find it darkly ironic that a legal purchase of music helped them catch the guy.
Does anyone know if there is data somewhere on how much money has been spent by governments (specifically the USA) on attacking copyright related stuff?<p>My main complaint about this is that I'd rather my tax dollars be spent stopping crime that causes physical harm.
Another black market business opportunity brought to you via fed money. DOJ, FBI, polish police, etc, etc all spent tax money on this takedown. All working so the next guy can make a website and make $16 million / year. And it only takes one guy to run the site apparently.<p>Who knows maybe the next guy will use Tor, Bitcoin, read Grugq's blog and be 5x as expensive to hunt down. Thanks US tax payers!
This will be interesting to watch. Torrent sites only host torrent files; I'm sure he'll argue that the DMCA requests were invalid because the people filing them didn't own copyright to the <i>torrent</i> files, which were the only thing that the site distributed. Where do we draw the line? Do we prosecute people for posting a magnet link? If a movie studio puts an MP4 of a not-yet-released film on its servers, is it illegal to link to it?<p>It will be an interesting case to watch if he takes it all the way to trial. I don't think it's nearly as open-and-shut as the DOJ would like everyone to believe every case it files is though.
So if extradited he may be tried. Now has jury of your peers (fellow citizens) any meaning in case of trying a non-US citizen? Jurors must be US citizens, but they will not be his peers, really.
" unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials.”<p>bullshit of course. He simply hosted hashes of torrents that other people uploaded.<p>As far as I know he even acknowledged dcma takedowns.
So that's why KAT's been down all day.<p>Two things: If you're going to build a torrent indexer, don't profit from it. Keep it alive yourself, with NO ads, just plain HTML and JS and images.<p>Second: This is why I vastly prefer usenet.
If I was making millions of dollars from illicit activities I would practice incredibly rigorous opsec. I realize modern lifestyles don't align with any kind of anonymity but come on. Here's a short list:<p>- No Apple<p>- No Facebook<p>- No Google<p>- Don't live in a 5 eyes or affiliated country<p>- Know the extradition and legal precedent in all countries visited
Is there a legal lesson to take from this when it comes to using cloud services hosted in the US where you can be affected by US laws just because you hosted a site with links to PDFs from Elsevier in an S3 bucket which itself happens to be pointing to a US datacenter? I haven't read it all, but there must be more to it than having used a US hoster that made the guy an easy litigation target.
A gentle reminder that the US can hunt you down and punish you under US law even you have never stepped foot in the country:<p>>> <i>"According to a Department of Justice press release sent to Ars, Vaulin was arrested on Wednesday in Poland. The DOJ will shortly seek his extradition to the United States."</i>
Very interesting. It seems he got busted by making the mistake of once-upon-a-time hosting in the US and Canada, thus providing them grounds for persecution.<p>So reading in that context, they would have been free and clear if it were not for that mistake!
So Bittorrent is decentralized but you need a centralized index of the available torrents? Is this correct? Can you find anything without a site like KAT? TIA.
~15 Years ago I went to to Poland on a student exchange. They held a presentation about their school and stuff and in the middle of the presentation theres a popup from emule saying it has finished downloading something. Mind you this was a school computer on their school network.<p>I suspect this has changed, but back then they were pretty laid back about that sort of thing.
Today such databases of cultural works metadata (movie descriptions, music album track lists) are illegal because you can use some of metadata (checksum of files) as identifier to associate it with actual content in p2p network.<p>What if we modify bittorrent dht or similar thing so it'll use some other identifier: wikidata id, oclc, instead of "checksum of checksums of files"? Next day Wikipedia and library catalogs become illegal?
> “Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials,” Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in the statement.<p>I can't keep myself from giggling and thinking about this:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0</a>
Someone has taken a dump of db ? I can't access to api to download dump. I try to connect on mirrors like <a href="http://kickasstorrents.video/" rel="nofollow">http://kickasstorrents.video/</a> or <a href="https://kat.host/" rel="nofollow">https://kat.host/</a>
After reading the whole PDF document of the complaint one thing jumped out<p>Here we have Apple, Google, Facebook, Coinbase, FDC Servers and few others handing over info on email accounts, wallets, hosting records and so on.
> KAT does not host individual infringing files but rather provides links to .torrent and .magnet files<p>What is a .magnet file? My understanding is that .magent link is the key hash in a distributed hash store (DHT).
kat was actually the best torrent website at the moment, and I'd say by far. This is a very inefficient way for the US government to spend resources and money, they won't be getting anywhere.
Time and resources well spent, glad we have our priorities in order. Maybe Hollywood actually runs the country and not the banks and corporations, ahh, ahh, I mean elected officials of the government.
"Do you have a legal right to distribute this content?"<p>"No."<p>"Do you respect the people who spent their personal time and their money to make the content you distribute?"<p>"Yes of course."<p>"No you don't or you would get their permission first."<p>"I don't think whether I respect the creators or not has anything to do with making their content available, which is what I want to do."<p>"Will you please get their permission to distribute what they spent their time and money -- part of their life -- to create?"<p>"Nope, sorry. I'm distributing it for free. They can take a hike."<p>Real sad, these modern morals. Real sad. If you don't respect others, they ain't gonna respect you.