Kickass torrents defense: Torrents are not copyrighted content, US has no case.

[Asiwassaying]

Okay I get it. You can steal any car you want cause what you are taking is just steel and rubber and not a car.

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I guess walking into a library, sitting down and reading a book is stealing.

Leaving with that book is stealing yes. And if that library does not have permission to have that book and allow it to be read for free, that's also stealing.

[Super Kami Dende]

Next up, Catalogue owner goes to jail for Murder for Ads that show people where to buy guns.

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Okay I get it. You can steal any car you want cause what you are taking is just steel and rubber and not a car.

Well no, but if you asked someone "Have you seen a Lamborghini around?" and they tell you where they saw one and you then go and steal said car, the person who told you where one is isn't the thief or at blame.

[Paula Deen]

Their lawyers are making an interesting approach to this case.



https://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorr...o-case-161018/

His defense is solid. Kickass doesn't host illegal files. It hosted torrents that may or may not have led to illegal files.

[TrumpIsPresident]

I will always "illegally" obtain tv shows, movies, and music.

I will never pay for them.

Fuck Hollywood and fuck the entertainment industry.

Bunch of halfwit hypocrites.

"wahh rich people don't pay their fair share > tax dodgers"

"wahh the wealth gay is too wide > pay actors $50 million pay the fx artist $15/hr"

"wahh global warming > sends passenger-less private jet to London to pick up jewlery"

And the way that the entertainment industry recklessly injects its rabid one-sided misinformation bias into all issues including this election makes me fucking sick.

There are scores of young people who's entire political understanding is based off Family Guy rhetoric and scripted (read false information) comedy shows.

So ya, cheers to Kickass.

TORRENTS FOREVER.

[Sunseeker]

He's got a solid argument. Giving someone information isn't a crime, how they use it might be.

Well, take the recent case of the Imam giving encryption help to possible terrorists. Giving a person the codes to Fort Knox isn't the same crime as actually stealing from Fort Knox, but if you know the guy you're giving the codes to is going to steal from Fort Knox, then you're aiding and abetting the commission of a crime. Telling people what phone number to call to listen to a recorded message of some unknown party speaking the codes to Fort Knox may be a few steps removed, but it's still aiding someone in the commission of a crime.

So yes, I agree that Kickass, and indeed all torrent websites didn't actually commit any copyright violations. However, they do aid people who intend to commit copyright violations.

[WintersLegion]

I will always "illegally" obtain tv shows, movies, and music.

I will never pay for them.

Fuck Hollywood and fuck the entertainment industry.

Bunch of halfwit hypocrites.

"wahh rich people don't pay their fair share > tax dodgers"

"wahh the wealth gay is too wide > pay actors $50 million pay the fx artist $15/hr"

"wahh global warming > sends passenger-less private jet to London to pick up jewlery"

And the way that the entertainment industry recklessly injects its rabid one-sided misinformation bias into all issues including this election makes me fucking sick.

There are scores of young people who's entire political understanding is based off Family Guy rhetoric and scripted (read false information) comedy shows.

So ya, cheers to Kickass.

TORRENTS FOREVER.

So if your so against hollywood and the entertainment industry you really should just be avoiding watching the shows at all rather than pirating them. If I have issues with a restaurant I don't go in get my food and leave with out paying. I just don't frequent the place and tell the people I know my problem with it.

[Sunseeker]

I've never understood why the market just doesn't adapt to the current technology fully. I still have problems finding the shows I want to watch, if they all just consolidated everything in one service that's easily accessible for a good price then I'd be more inclined to pay for watching instead of downloading it.

As it stands they're making it close to impossible to watch some things unless you want to wait about a year before it comes to your country.

They should get with the times.

This is my major problem at the moment with the "industry" as well. There are many shows which are incredibly difficult to obtain due to age, obscurity or really, really fucked up copyright issues. However, I, like many others, would happily pay a reasonable fee to obtain these products, but since "the industry" doesn't see providing this content to me as worth their effort, I have no issue with turning to alternate sources.

[TrumpIsPresident]

So if your so against hollywood and the entertainment industry you really should just be avoiding watching the shows at all rather than pirating them. If I have issues with a restaurant I don't go in get my food and leave with out paying. I just don't frequent the place and tell the people I know my problem with it.

Ha but see with "pirating" I can have my cake and eat it too.

Plus, its not theft in the true sense of the word.

I know that pirated copy is a copy not sold.

So in the practical sense you could say that its money that the distributor wont receive.

Buts nothing has been stolen from them either.

Its a technologically created grey area that lobbyists have made sure favors the industry.

I didn't steal it from a store and I didn't take money from anybody's wallet.

These people are uber wealthy hypocritical immoral assholes so fuck them and their QQ over copyrights.

And whats even more hilarious is that the single greatest amount of copyright infringement is occurring overseas.

Now do these Hollyweird fuckers ever support lawmakers who will do anything about that?

Of course not.

They just want to put some 16 year old in prison for 25 years because he made a backup copy of a DVD.

[Tackhisis]

lending out nintendo games and dvds weren't illegal either.

Do you understand the difference between an item that cannot be duplicated (cartridge or disk, a book), and a digital data that can be trivially replicated?

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There is a difference between Google and torrent hosting: a search engine indexes publicly available data without particular purpose and prejudice. Torrent hosting indexes only files intended to illegally distribute copyrighted content with the sole purpose to distribute copyrighted content.

[Deleted]

Do you understand the difference between an item that cannot be duplicated (cartridge or disk, a book), and a digital data that can be trivially replicated?

Or, like, using a double deck cassette player to copy the whole cassette or certain songs off of it...or using two VHS' to make copies of VHS tapes. All of which was perfectly fine before the internet, and something we did on an almost daily basis.

There is a difference between Google and torrent hosting: a search engine indexes publicly available data without particular purpose and prejudice. Torrent hosting indexes only files intended to illegally distribute copyrighted content with the sole purpose to distribute copyrighted content.

Not all torrents distribute copyrighted content "illegally". Game updates use torrents, people share free materials with torrents, and so on.

[Wolfman31]

I'm not going to pretend to be a lawyer, unlike many people on the internet, but I will say that I hope KAT wins their case because the impact of digital piracy is greatly exaggerated. We've already seen the people behind Game of Thrones bravely admit that despite their show being the most pirated show of all time, it doesn't affect their bottom line at all. I feel like any attempt to stop piracy on the internet not only fails but opens the door to further censorship. I believe the internet should be free and open just as any line of communication between humans should be. The big corporations losing a few dollars because a minuscule minority pirates their products should just write off the loss and move on. If the product is good enough, the majority of people will pay for it.

[Auxora]

I hate to admit it, but I think in the end it still probably qualifies as aiding a criminal act. It's along the same lines of being a getaway car driver in a robbery. The driver (assuming not speeding, etc.) in isolation isn't breaking a law, but driving a car to help a criminal act is. Considering 99% of the torrents on KAT were illegal, it's pretty hard to say they didn't know or that they thought they were legitimate.

It still seems odd that sites like that can't live in/find a hosting service in a country that doesn't extradite or have some sort of prosecution agreement. There are ~85 countries that don't have one, so it's not a short list. Unfortunately for KAT Poland was not one of them.

[Mormolyce]

I doubt that argument will hold up in court, but this whole effort is pointless. As we all know, take down one torrent site and watch as 10 more sprout in its place. Torrenting isn't something you can stop by force of law.

It wouldn't stop piracy though, which is the point.

It's about the only thing likely to reduce piracy significantly though.

Look at that old speech Gabe Newell gave about launching Steam in Russia. Given a reasonable legal alternative to torrenting at an attractive price point, many people will shift, despite the fact piracy is free.

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Do you understand the difference between an item that cannot be duplicated (cartridge or disk, a book), and a digital data that can be trivially replicated?

I'm fairly certain that ripping DVDs and CDs, copying cartridges (which was less common), VHS cassettes and audio tapes were all illegal in their respective eras. All those laws failed to stop those things happening, and I think that digital data's trivial replicability only makes legislation in that area all the more doomed to failure.

There is a difference between Google and torrent hosting: a search engine indexes publicly available data without particular purpose and prejudice. Torrent hosting indexes only files intended to illegally distribute copyrighted content with the sole purpose to distribute copyrighted content.

You'd be hard pressed to prove that illegally distributing copyrighted content is the sole purpose of torrent sites in a court of law. The torrent site itself is content agnostic.

[Ahhdurr]

Industry is behind the times. They fucked themselves because they were stupid and lazy. Big fucking whoop.

[Asiwassaying]

Next up, Catalogue owner goes to jail for Murder for Ads that show people where to buy guns.

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Well no, but if you asked someone "Have you seen a Lamborghini around?" and they tell you where they saw one and you then go and steal said car, the person who told you where one is isn't the thief or at blame.

But what you are actually doing is asking where is a good spot to steal a Lamborghini. In that case, you are to blame.

Now, if they directed you to a dealership and not to their neighbor who leaves his keys in the car, they would be okay.

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At the end of the day I see it like this. If everyone pirated and no one paid for shit, The content you want more of would not exist. Cause people need to eat.

Now there is some sort of balance , but if everyone doing what you do results in an unsustainable situation. You're wrong. And if you are helping people do that, you're still wrong.

[prwraith]

Drugs were brought up as an example.

If files are drugs, what we have here is a rave.
A torrent file is a ticket to get into a rave.
All the people in the rave are the p2p users.
The person running the rave and checking tickets is a tracker.
And finally the person who's listing where all the raves are and the person giving people tickets is KAT.

A handful of those raves have no drugs in them at all (legal torrents, like Linux distros).
A whole lot of those raves have drugs, though.

Is it a crime to list all the raves, let people search through them, and then give people a ticket to get into those raves?

KAT isn't giving them drugs (not a direct DL). They aren't even running the raves (Not a tracker). So it's certainly a case of "secondary copyright liability".

Remember, KAT was just a "torrent directory" unlike TPB, which was both a directory and a tracker. KAT never had their own tracker, they used other trackers.

Merely possessing a ticket and giving it away though isn't a crime I think

[announced]

since KAT is unlike TPB as explained above, they dont seem to actually be breaking the law. Sure they have some ilegal files you can search for, but they also have legal ones. perhaps if they could somehow link more legal torrents than illegal ones their case would appear stronger.

[Blobfish]

Its a shame people are downloading Kickass with Torrent

Its one of my fave movies.. The actors need to get royalties etc.

It is a breech of Copyright.

Kickass One was pretty good

[Slant]

It wouldn't stop piracy though, which is the point.

Ermmmm, that is not quite correct. Look at the VPN services for Netflix as an example. People do think that around 10 bucks a month is sufficient if they can get the content they want. Netflix makes a shitton of money like that. Now that studios like Sony pressured Netflix into enforcing geoblocking more strictly, people notice that the national catalogues are shite. A lot of people, A LOT of people have said they'd cancel Netflix and go back to streaming those series/movies for free.

This isn't just a few disgruntled hacks. This is normal people, the target group of Netflix. Mid 20s that think 10 bucks a month is worth not having to look through dubious sites for their entertainment. Studios like Sony have not unterstood the internet and the potential of it. They are still arrested in their 20th century copyright thinking. And being the greedy stock market fucks that they are, they want to sell to each country individually instead of just handing out non-exclusive global licenses. Jesus, imagine that... non-exclusive licenses. Instead of just selling to Netflix for 100 mil, they get to sell it to Netflix and Amazonprime for 70 mil. both Amazon and Netflix save some money and the studios make more. This is a move that would wipe piracy off the internet instantly.

But no, let's all stick to 20th century bullshittery and drown each other in endless litigations and feeble attempts to geoblock shit, because we're all still villages in our minds.

[lonely zergling]

We need these stuff because evil companies put geoblocking up or dont offer us a way to pay at all. Its the industries own fault... it seems like they dont even want my money.