Feds Seize KickassTorrents Domains, Arrest Owner

[Yunru]

They made a petition:
https://www.change.org/p/https-www-j...e-artem-vaulin

Site is a bit unstable tho.

[Blade Wolf]

They made a petition:
https://www.change.org/p/https-www-j...e-artem-vaulin

Site is a bit unstable tho.

Don't think anything will change because of that petition but i agree that this is just a witch hunt because nothing will change as we've seen, it's already up again and running so they've wasted time and effort for nothing.

[Orlong]

Don't think anything will change because of that petition but i agree that this is just a witch hunt because nothing will change as we've seen, it's already up again and running so they've wasted time and effort for nothing.

Actually it is NOT back up and running. There is a mirror of the original site that someone else hosted with mostly archival torrents. There isnt anything new on it.

According to a Venture Beat report, the KAT mirror is hosting files from about the last year and a half or so, giving people just enough time to archive anything they didn’t have time to save. Although the links should still work, there are no forums on the mirror—one of the biggest draws to the original KAT website.

[Mafic]

LOL!

They can do this but they can't stop terrorists. Epic fail.

[Vinstri]

The cycle repeats itself, close one and make two more.

[Puupi]

*loremipsumbabelfishnonsense*

.......que?!

[Rennadrel]

Conspiracy to commit money laundering? Well, there's an idea to charge the whole bunch of US politicians for, along with tons of corporate CEO's

The irony of the US justice system, to be honest.

[Jester Joe]

They made a petition:
https://www.change.org/p/https-www-j...e-artem-vaulin

Site is a bit unstable tho.

That isn't even a reasonable petition though, it's just an appeal to emotion.

It won't change anything, just like arresting the guy really won't either, but still.

[Deleted]

They never stop trying, admirable but pointless.

[stabetha]

Leave it to Uncle Sam to step way out of jurisdiction to impose legal action on a non-citizen when big wig CEO's money is in danger.

he was arrested by the polish police and we have an extradition treaty with them so they didn't go out of their jurisdiction at all.

[kail]

They made a petition:
https://www.change.org/p/https-www-j...e-artem-vaulin

Site is a bit unstable tho.

I agree that it's a non-stop war, but am I the only one sensing some misguided entitlement here?

It's another attack on freedom and rights of internet users from all around the world.

Is there a new set of rights that I'm unaware of? Did IP law suddenly change when I wasn't looking?

[Queen of Hamsters]

If only the business would adapt instead of fighting a losing battle...
I'd gladly pay to watch movies at home at the time that they reach cinemas, and buy movies/TV show episodes digitally...

[Deleted]

If only the business would adapt instead of fighting a losing battle...

I think if it were that simple they would have done it by now, tbh.

[Vash The Stampede]

I think if it were that simple they would have done it by now, tbh.

It is easy, just look at Netflix or Apple's iTunes. The issue is that they make far less. Netflix was thought to have reduced piracy cause it was easier than getting onto your favorite torrent. People are lazy and will always go to the easiest route. But the music industry is nearly dead, thanks largely to iTunes and YouTube. It's easier to go on YouTube to listen to your favorite song than to go buy a CD.

One thing I've observed with piracy is that when companies fight back, things get worse for them. Look at things like Kazaa and Napster where piracy was kind of a bitch. You downloaded files from person to person, and lots of times it was filled with viruses. Left alone, people would have gotten sick of it. Then Metallica got involved and shut down all these services and won, but then came Bit Torrent. There was a point where nearly half the internet traffic was torrenting. There's no one entity to go after with Bit Torrent, and files are faster and less likely to be filled with viruses. It is easier to pirate with Bit Torrent. While you can shut down websites like KickAss, the torrents will still live on.

Another example of this is Nintendo. Back when Nintendo was going to release the N64, they stuck with cartridges cause CDs were easy to pirate. Nintendo remembered the piracy issues they had with the Famicom Disk System, and stuck with cartridges. But then an emulator called UltraHLE appeared and their games were playable on a PC. To make matters worse, the cartridges made the games smaller compared to CDs. Mario 64 is only 8MB in size, which was doable for people with 56k modems. To this day, Nintendo keeps making mistakes like this with the Wii and Wii U, which are both functioning on PC with modest specs. Even the Nintendo DS has a fiasco with special cartridges with SD card slots that allowed people to pull hundreds of games on a single cartridge. The Sony PSP had a similar issue with Sony responding with the PSP GO, which was specifically to stop piracy. It didn't do well in sales as the games had to be bought online. Lack of Piracy probably killed the PS Vita due to memory sticks being proprietary and being so expensive.

A rule I came up with is the harder companies try to stop piracy, the easier it gets to pirate. Pirates will always win. Best thing you can do is make it easier and cheaper to buy your products than it is to pirate.