KickassTorrents

Last updated

KickassTorrents
Kickasstorrentslogo.png
Type of site
Torrent directory, magnet links provider
Available in Multilingual (30+ languages, English primary language)
URL kickass.to ; offline since July 2016
RegistrationOptional
Users Over 1 million per day (August 2015)
LaunchedNovember 2008;16 years ago (2008-11)
Current statusOffline

KickassTorrents (commonly abbreviated KAT) was a website that provided a directory for torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. It was founded in 2008 and by November 2014, KAT became the most visited BitTorrent directory in the world, overtaking The Pirate Bay, according to the site's Alexa ranking. [1] KAT went offline on 20 July 2016 when the domain was seized by the U.S. government. The site's proxy servers were shut down by its staff at the same time. [2]

Contents

In December 2016, former KAT staff members revived the KAT community by creating a website with its predecessor's features and appearance. [3]

History

KAT was initially launched in November 2008 at the domain name kickasstorrents.com. In April 2011, it moved to a Philippine domain kat.ph after a series of domain name seizures by the US Department of Justice against Demonoid and Torrentz. [4] The site later moved across several different domains, which the operators planned to do every six months, including ka.tt, kickass.to, kickass.so, kickasstorrents.im and kat.cr. [5]

In June 2016, KAT added an official Tor network .onion address. [6]

Blocking and censorship

KickassTorrents on its website claimed that it complied with the DMCA and it removed infringing torrents reported by content owners. [7]

On 28 February 2013, Internet service providers (ISPs) in the United Kingdom were ordered by the High Court in London to block access to KickassTorrents, along with two other torrent sites. Judge Richard Arnold ruled that the site's design contributed to copyright infringement. [8] [9] On 14 June, the domain name was changed to Tonga domain name kickass.to as a part of the site's regular domain change. [10]

Later on 23 June, KAT was delisted from Google at the request of the MPAA. [11] In late August 2013, KAT was blocked by Belgian ISPs. [12] In January 2014, several Irish ISPs started blocking KAT, [13] and in February, Twitter started blocking links to KAT, although this was stopped after a few days. [14] In June 2014, KAT was blocked in Malaysia by the Communications and Multimedia Commission for violating copyright law. [15]

In December 2014, the site moved to the Somalia domain name kickass.so, reportedly as a result of site's regular domain change. [16] [17] On 9 February 2015, kickass.so was listed as "banned" on Whois, causing the site to go offline. Later that day, the site reverted to its former domain name kickass.to. [18] On 14 February 2015, it was found that messages mentioning "kickass.to" were blocked on Steam chat, but "kickass.so" and other popular torrent websites were not blocked, only flagged as "potentially malicious". [19]

On 23 April 2015, the site moved to the Isle of Man-based domain kickasstorrents.im, [20] but was taken down later that day, and on 24 April it was moved to the Costa Rica based domain name kat.cr. [21] By July 2015, the kat.cr address had been removed from Google Search's results. After the removal, the top Google search result for KAT in many locations pointed to a fake KAT site that prompted visitors to download malware. [22]

In October 2015, Portugal bypassed its courts by making a voluntary agreement between ISPs, rightsholders and the Ministry of Culture to block access to KAT and most of the other popular BitTorrent websites. [23] The website had similarly been banned in India for copyright violations during that period. [24] At the same time, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox blocked access to KAT because of security concerns with some of the ads pointing to malware. [25] In April 2016, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox blocked KAT due to phishing concerns. [26] Both blocks were later removed after KAT dealt with the concerns.

One of the main domains of the site went up for sale in August 2016. [27] [28]

Arrest of the alleged owner

Notice displayed on KickassTorrents sites after its seizure KickassTorrents Domain seizure.jpg
Notice displayed on KickassTorrents sites after its seizure

On 20 July 2016, the United States Department of Justice announced that it had seized the KAT.cr domain and had identified its alleged owner. Artem Vaulin (Ukrainian : Артем Ваулін), a 30-year-old Ukrainian man known online as "tirm", was detained in Poland after being charged with a four-count U.S. criminal indictment. [29] The remaining domains were taken offline voluntarily after the KAT.cr domain name was seized. [30] Following the seizure of the original KAT domain multiple unofficial mirrors have been put online. These have no connection to the original team who have been urging users to exercise caution. [31] [32] A number of these mirrors have since been taken down. [33]

An investigation led by special agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan [34] culminated in the arrest of Vaulin after investigators cross-referenced an IP address he used for an iTunes transaction with an IP address used to log into KAT's Facebook page. The FBI also posed as an advertiser and obtained details of a bank account associated with the site. [30]

The criminal complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by Homeland Security Investigations, stated that authorities were in possession of full copies of KAT's hard drives, including its email server. Investigators suggested that KAT made over $12 million per year in advertising revenue. [35]

In late August 2016, the Department of Justice followed the complaint with a full grand jury indictment of Vaulin and two other defendants, Ievgen Kutsenko and Oleksandr Radostin; while Vaulin was still being held in a Polish prison. [36] Vaulin obtained both Polish and US legal representation, the latter in the person of Ira Rothken. [37] [38] In November 2016, a Polish appeals court refused to allow bail for Vaulin, stating the evidence provided by the US is sufficient to keep him in prison. [39]

Vaulin's case was officially put on hold after Vaulin "disappeared" from Poland. His bail of $108,000 was forfeited. His legal team was reported to have withdrawn from the case after they lost contact with Vaulin. [40]

Revival

In mid-December 2016, some of the former KAT staff and moderators launched a website with a similar appearance as the original under the domain katcr.co. [3] The site has been offline since July 2020.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BREIN</span> Dutch entertainment industry interest group

The Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland is an advocacy group with international links, based in the Netherlands, which represents the interests of the Dutch entertainment industry and is organised under the Dutch law through the legal form of stichting. It is notable for launching court proceedings against copyright infringement in the country and for engaging in lobbying in order to create legal precedents of global significance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Pirate Bay</span> Website providing torrent files and magnet links

The Pirate Bay, commonly abbreviated as TPB, is a freely searchable online index of movies, music, video games, pornography and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay facilitates the connection among users of the peer-to-peer torrent protocol, which are able to contribute to the site through the addition of magnet links. The Pirate Bay has consistently ranked as one of the most visited torrent websites in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demonoid</span> BitTorrent website

Demonoid is a BitTorrent tracker and website founded in 2003 to facilitate file-sharing related discussion and provide a searchable index of torrent files. The site underwent intermittent periods of extended downtime in its history due to the occasional need to move the server, generally caused by cancellation of ISP service due to local political pressure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TorrentFreak</span> Blog on file sharing, copyright infringement, and digital rights

TorrentFreak (TF) is a blog dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing, as well as on copyright infringement and digital rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torrentz</span> BitTorrent metasearch engine

Torrentz was a Finland-based metasearch engine for BitTorrent, run by an individual known as Flippy and founded on 24 July 2003. It indexed torrents from various major torrent websites and offered compilations of various trackers per torrent that were not necessarily present in the default .torrent file, so that when a tracker was down, other trackers could do the work. It was the second most popular torrent website in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EZTV</span> TV torrent distribution group

EZTV is a TV torrent distribution group founded in May 2005 and dissolved in April 2015, after a hostile takeover of their domains and brand by "EZCLOUD LIMITED". It quickly became the most visited torrent site for TV shows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PirateBrowser</span> Tor Browser-based circumvention tool prepared by The Pirate Bay

PirateBrowser is an Internet browser by The Pirate Bay used to circumvent Internet censorship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Countries blocking access to The Pirate Bay</span>

This is a list of countries where at least one internet service provider (ISP) formerly or currently censors the popular file sharing website The Pirate Bay (TPB).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Popcorn Time</span> BitTorrent client and media player software

Popcorn Time is a multi-platform, free software BitTorrent client that includes an integrated media player. The application provides a piracy-based alternative to subscription-based video streaming services such as Netflix. Popcorn Time uses sequential downloading to stream video listed by several torrent websites, and third-party trackers can also be added manually. The legality of the software depends on the jurisdiction.

The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) is a unit of the City of London Police, the national lead force for fraud. It was established in 2013 with the responsibility to investigate and deter serious and organised intellectual property crime in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nyaa Torrents</span> File sharing website focused on East Asian media

Nyaa Torrents is a BitTorrent website focused on East Asian media. It is one of the largest public anime-dedicated torrent indexes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RARBG</span> BitTorrent metasearch engine

RARBG was a website that provided torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. From 2014 to 2023, RARBG repeatedly appeared in TorrentFreak's yearly list of most visited torrent websites. It was ranked 4th as of January 2023. The website did not allow users to upload their own torrents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Library Genesis</span> File-sharing website for publications

Library Genesis (LibGen) is a shadow library project for file-sharing access to scholarly journal articles, academic and general-interest books, images, comics, audiobooks, and magazines. The site enables free access to content that is otherwise paywalled or not digitized elsewhere. LibGen describes itself as a "links aggregator", providing a searchable database of items "collected from publicly available public Internet resources" as well as files uploaded "from users".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1337x</span> File sharing website

1337x is an online website that provides a directory of torrent files and magnet links used for peer-to-peer file sharing through the BitTorrent protocol. According to the TorrentFreak news blog, 1337x is the second-most popular torrent website as of 2024. The U.S. Trade Representative flagged it as one of the most notorious pirate sites earlier in 2024. The site and its variants have been blocked in a variety of nations including Australia, and Portugal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torrent Project</span>

The Torrent Project or Torrent Search Project was a metasearch engine for torrent files, which consolidated links from other popular torrent hosting pages such as ExtraTorrent. It was available as an alternative and successor for the closed Torrentz.eu and KickassTorrents sites, and its index included over 8 million torrent files, and had a clean, simple interface. Beyond allowing torrent files of popular films, it also carried self-produced content. It had an API that allowed the search function to be integrated into applications, and the news-site TorrentFreak suggested that it could have allowed streaming in the future. It had adopted the Torrents Time plugin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YIFY</span> Peer-to-peer movies release group

YIFY Torrents or YTS was a peer-to-peer release group known for distributing large numbers of movies as free downloads through BitTorrent. YIFY releases were characterised through their small file size, which attracted many downloaders.

FMovies was a series of file streaming websites that host links and embedded videos, allowing users to stream or download movies for free. The sites have been subject to legal action in various jurisdictions on grounds of copyright infringement and piracy. In August 2024, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment announced that the site was shut down by Vietnamese authorities. The sites were receiving billions of views a year at its peak.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Z-Library</span> File-sharing site for journal articles, books, and magazines

Z-Library is a shadow library project for file-sharing access to scholarly journal articles, academic texts and general-interest books. It began as a mirror of Library Genesis, but has expanded dramatically.

FitGirl Repacks is a website distributing pirated video games. FitGirl Repacks is known for "repacking" games – compressing them significantly so they can be downloaded and shared more efficiently. TorrentFreak listed FitGirl Repacks at sixth in 2024 and at ninth in 2020's Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites lists.

References

  1. ↑ "Alexa Top 500 Global Sites". Archived from the original on 13 November 2014. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  2. ↑ Nick Statt (20 July 2016). "KickassTorrents domains seized after alleged owner is arrested in Poland" . Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  3. 1 2 "KickassTorrents Brought Back to Life by Original Staffers (Updated) - TorrentFreak". 16 December 2016.
  4. ↑ Ernesto (22 April 2011). "KickassTorrents Moves to Kat.ph". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 15 March 2014.
  5. ↑ Ernesto (23 April 2015). "KickassTorrents Moves to Isle of Man Domain Name". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  6. ↑ "KickassTorrents enters the dark webs, adds official Tor address". Torrentfreak. 7 June 2016. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  7. ↑ "KAT DMCA". Archived from the original on 25 February 2015.
  8. ↑ O'Carroll, Lisa (28 February 2013). "Online piracy: ISPs ordered to block access to three file-sharing websites". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  9. ↑ EMI Records Limited, Infectious Limited, Liberation Music Pty Limited, Polydor Limited, Simco Limited, Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited, Universal Music Operations Limited, Virgin Records Limited, Warner Music UK Limited, Weainternational Inc v British Sky Broadcasting Limited, British Telecommunications Plc, Everything Everywhere Limited, TalktalkTelecom Group Plc, Telefónica UK Limited, Virgin Media Limited [2013] EWHC 379(Ch) (28 February 2013), High Court (England and Wales)
  10. ↑ "Moving to Kickass.To — Blog — KickassTorrents". Kickass.to. Archived from the original on 14 March 2014. Retrieved 15 March 2014.
  11. ↑ Ernesto (23 June 2013). "MPAA Kicks KickassTorrents Off Google With 'Precision' Takedown". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 24 June 2013.
  12. ↑ "Belgische providers blokkeren meer torrentsites" (in Dutch).
  13. ↑ "Irish Internet Providers Roll Out KickassTorrents Blockade". TorrentFreak. 19 January 2014. Retrieved 19 January 2014.
  14. ↑ "Twitter Blocks Kickass.to Links, Says They're Unsafe". TorrentFreak. 21 February 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  15. ↑ "Kickass.to has been officially blocked in Malaysia". 25 June 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  16. ↑ "KickassTorrent Moves Domain to Somalia". Softpedia News. 18 November 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  17. ↑ "KickassTorrents Moves to Kickass.so Domain Name". TorrentFreak. 17 November 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  18. ↑ Ernesto (9 February 2015). "Kickass Torrents taken down by domain name seizure". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  19. ↑ Ernesto (14 February 2015). "Steam Censors Kickass.to Mentions in Chat Client". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
  20. ↑ "KickassTorrents Moves to Isle of Man Domain Name". 23 April 2015. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
  21. ↑ "KickassTorrents is moving to kat.cr domain". kat.cr. 25 April 2015. Archived from the original on 6 June 2015. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
  22. ↑ Ernesto (18 July 2015). "KickassTorrents Disappears From Google After Penalty". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
  23. ↑ Ernesto (26 October 2015). "Portugal Blocks Popular Torrent and Streaming Sites". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  24. ↑ Pathak, Priya (13 February 2017). "Google may soon ban torrent sites". India Today.
  25. ↑ Ernesto (27 October 2015). "KickassTorrents Blocked Again Over 'Harmful Programs'" . Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  26. ↑ "Chrome and Firefox Block KickassTorrents as "Phishing" Site". TorrentFreak. 12 April 2016. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  27. ↑ "KickassTorrents Domain for Sale at just $230". Archived from the original on 10 August 2016. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  28. ↑ "KickassTorrents Domain Goes Up For Sale For A Minimum Bid of $230". 8 August 2016. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  29. ↑ "Kickass Torrents targeted by DOJ, feds say website distributed $1 billion in copyrighted works". The Washington Times . 20 July 2016. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  30. 1 2 Van der Sar, Ernesto (20 July 2016). "Feds Seize KickassTorrents Domains, Arrest Owner". TorrentFreak . Retrieved 21 July 2016. At the time of writing the main domain name Kat.cr has trouble loading, but various proxies still appear to work. KAT's status page doesn't list any issues, but this will be updated shortly.
  31. ↑ Van Der Sar, Ernesto. "KickassTorrents Mirrors and Imposters Spring into Action". Torrent Freak. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  32. ↑ Van der Sar, Ernesto. "KickassTorrents Community Resurrects, Without Torrents". Torrent Freak. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  33. ↑ Protalinski, Emil (31 July 2016). "KickassTorrents mirrors go down, but new KAT sites quickly spring up". Vebture Beat. VentureBeat. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  34. ↑ Ockenden, Will (22 July 2016). "Kickass Torrents: How did the US Government bring down the file-sharing site?". news.com.au. Retrieved 24 July 2016.
  35. ↑ "Can KickassTorrents Make a Comeback?". TorrentFreak. 21 July 2016. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  36. ↑ Van der Sar, Ernesto (25 August 2016). "U.S. Government Indicts Three Alleged KickassTorrents Operators". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 25 August 2016.
  37. ↑ Van der Sar, Ernesto (28 July 2016). "KickassTorrents' Alleged Owner Retains Kim Dotcom's Lawyer". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
  38. ↑ Cooke, Chris (4 October 2016). "Extradition proceedings underway in Kickass case". Complete Music Update. Archived from the original on 8 October 2016. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
  39. ↑ Alleged KickassTorrents Owner Stays in Prison, Court Rules 2 November 2016
  40. ↑ "Criminal case against Kickass founder now officially on the 'fugitive calendar". Complete Music Update. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.