Yes! you heard it correct. Apple and Facebook helped bust the most popular torrent-sharing website in the world, " Kickass Torrents", often called as KAT. It has gone offline after the United States government seized seven of its domains.
The 30-year-old Ukrainian Artem Vaulin also called as "tirm," owner and operator of Kickass Torrents, was arrested in Poland yesterday and is charged with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering and in addition, a federal court in Chicago has ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names.
The Government also accuses Tirm of stealing more than $1 billion in profits from the U.S. entertainment industry. The complaint said, "KAT receives more than 50 million unique visitors per month and that made KAT be the 69th most frequently visited website on the internet."
The 30-year-old Ukrainian Artem Vaulin also called as "tirm," owner and operator of Kickass Torrents, was arrested in Poland yesterday and is charged with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering and in addition, a federal court in Chicago has ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names.
The Government also accuses Tirm of stealing more than $1 billion in profits from the U.S. entertainment industry. The complaint said, "KAT receives more than 50 million unique visitors per month and that made KAT be the 69th most frequently visited website on the internet."
The complaint also reveals that the feds produce as an advertiser, which revealed a bank account associated with the site. Also "Apple" handed over personal details of Vaulin after the investigation cross-referenced an IP-address used for an iTunes transaction with an IP-address that was used to login to KAT's Facebook account.
The records provided by Apple showed that "tirm@me.com conducted an iTunes transaction using IP Address 109.86.226.203 on July 31, 2015. The same IP Address was used on the same day to login into the KAT Facebook".
Defenders of sites like KAT have argued that there is nothing wrong in providing links and it is up to individuals what they do with the information and many new sites are uprising to fill the void.
KAT uses BitTorrent or uTorrent for peer-to-peer file sharing, and it overtook Pirate Bay which does not host any illegal content itself but provides links to files that can download unauthorized copies of content from other users' computers. It has been under legal tangles often, changing its domain several times in the last five years.
So let's wait and see what's gonna happen next.
source: Torrentfreak, Google, Internet.
images: Google.
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