Kickass Torrents' KAT.ph Domain Seized By Philippine Authorities

hypnosec writes "Kickass Torrents hasn't been accessible since sometime yesterday, and now it has been confirmed that the domain name of the torrent website has been seized by Philippine authorities. Local record labels and the Philippine Association of the Recording Industry said that the torrent site was doing 'irreparable damages' to the music industry and following a formal complaint the authorities resorted to seizure of the main domain name. The site hasn't given up, and is operating as usual under a new domain name. The government of the Philippines has confirmed that the domain name has been seized based on formal complaints and copyright grounds."

Comments

You know

[ArchieBunker]

You "editors" could spend all of two minutes to link to the new domain. Or is that too much to ask?

Re:You know

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, since you couldn't be bothered to do it either.

http://kickass.to

Re:You know

[Sean]

Thank you for posting. Any site that has a link taken away from it by any authority should be linked to by everyone in retaliation for the censorship.

The editors should have linked to it in the summary. They should fix the oversight and link to it now.

Re:You know

[girlintraining]

The editors should have linked to it in the summary. They should fix the oversight and link to it now.

The editors are now owned an operated by a corporation. As a corporation they can be sued. As they can be sued, they aren't going to partake of legal action that might jeopardize their profits. This isn't like Digg or a dozen other sites that, upon hearing from their users they had caved to political pressure mounted a massive PR campaign.

The slashdot of years past no longer exists. It won't take the chance anymore. In other news, what I really want to know is why torrent sites aren't going to .onion domains ... which can't be taken down by any government order. As a 'hidden service', they're just a new tor circuit connection away from restarting... no DNS, no jurisdictional issues... not much chance of finding out even where they really are. And the .torrent files and magnet links don't take up much bandwidth, unlike the P2P transfers, which don't involve the site anyway...

I really don't get why they're sticking with blockable technologies... maybe they're just stubborn or trying to prove a point.

Re:You know

[TheP4st]

You wont be able to find any illegal content hosted by the site no matter how long and hard you look, what you will find however are .torrent files and magnet links. Big difference but not one I'd expect you to be willing to accept.

Re:You know

[TheP4st]

I should perhaps added that legality is a matter of jurisdiction "in the 2004 case of BMG Canada Inc. v. John Doe, court decided that both downloading music and putting it in a shared folder available to other people online were legal in Canada." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_aspects_of_file_sharing#Canada

Re:You know

[SuricouRaven]

Accessibility. There are some people who pirate for a hobby, who would love any excuse to go cloak-and-dagger. There are also many, many more casual pirates who are just thrifty or lazy. If accessing a torrent site requires spending an hour researching and configuring new technology, they'll just find a different site - or go buy what they want legitimately.

Re:You know

[advocate_one]

already blocked in the UK

Sorry, the web page you have requested is not available through Virgin Media.

Virgin Media has received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement.

Re:You know

[king neckbeard]

Well, "dura lex set lex" - should you ever be so unlucky to be fined for downloading say the new Iron Man movie, then I suggest that you find a stronger legal defense than that.

I'm not making a legal defense. I'm saying that the law itself is bad, and strictly speaking, it doesn't pass a strict Constitutional muster. The law as it stands is clearly following a different philosophy than the only justified one (public benefit), so it should not be respected, and if anything, should be actively defied. Believe it or not, the law can be wrong, and often is. Also, your broken latin phrase doesn't apply, since the law is not harsh, but injust. It is often grossly disproportionate to the extent that there have been Constitutional challenges to statutory damages, and the harshness of the law is a major concern, but the bigger flaw is that it's based in medieval economics, and has no place in the modern world. The relevant terms are themselves quite telling. 'Copyright' originated from the right to copy, back when it conveyed a positive right to make copies, because it was part of a censorship regime in which proliferation of unsanctioned knowledge was forbidden. If you are ignorant on the matter, look up the Stationer's Company. 'Royalties' are another big hint that the system is antiquated, although a number of prominent organizations calling themselves 'guilds' doesn't help the matter much.

simply freeloading the result of someone's hard work because you can, is not the answer either. I find it unethical. I don't find it wrong to pay a reasonable price for music, movies or books that interest me. And for those that I don't want to pay the price for, well then I don't download them.

Sweat of the brow arguments are legally invalid in regards to copyright law, per Feist v. Rural. And ethically, sharing information is generally a good thing, with only a few exceptions. I do no oppose supporting the arts, and I likely have done more towards that end than you have.

You've also thrown out the term 'freeloading,' yet another sign of an incompetent copyright proponent. Are you TRYING to fill up your bingo card on that? I would direct you to read Mark Lemly's paper on the subject.

Re:You know

[jones_supa]

True, and that's why services like Steam make profit so well: they are just convenient enough compared to the piracy route.

Re:You know

[nospam007]

Camembert (2891457)
'Yeah right, it is soo typical of this entitlement generation to find excuses like that. '

Please cease and desist from using the Camembert name.
Camembert was granted a protected designation of origin in 1992 after the original AOC in 1983.
If you're not in Normandy, France and a Cheese, you are not entitled to that name even if you're old enough to be a bit runny. It's a copyright violation.

Re:You know

[mwvdlee]

1560 hits to, presumably, mostly illegal torrent files, as found by Google and directly linked to the .torrent file:
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=rick%20astley%20filetype%3Atorrent

Big nasty illegal downloading site: 61 hits, presumably a small subset of what Google finds.
http://kickass.to/usearch/rick%20astley/

Neither site hosts the actual .torrent files.

Please explain why one should be considered illegal and the other not?

Re:You know

[Rockoon]

Please explain why one should be considered illegal and the other not?

He wont because he doesnt understand the technology. He doesnt understand that a torrent file is about 12KB in size and contains absolutely nothing even remotely illegal.

Re:You know

[TheP4st]

And I have friends who make a living as touring musicians earning there livelihood on the sales of the tickets plus CD's, t-shirts etc sold at the venue. Do they get upset if someone download their music? No. I know that they don't. They value the promotional value of every new listener as being someone that one day might come and listen to their live performances and pay for the privilege to do so. You know that obscure way which used to be the primary source of income for musicians since the beginning of time. Regarding sales of CD's at the venue, Einstürzende Neubaten have a very clever approach to it. At the end of each performance you can buy a DRM free USB with the concert you just listened to on it, if I recall correctly I paid 25€ for mine a couple of years ago.

Re:You know

[TheP4st]

I also think that when you create something, it is your right to ask money for it or not.

I think you would have a hard time to find anyone here that dispute that, but creating something does not make you entitled to dictate what people do with it after they have paid for it.

On a side note, I think that I should be entitled to a refund on the 23.60€ (+30€ for drinks and snacks) I paid for myself and my wife to watch Star Trek last night as it utterly failed to deliver the experience I expect from Star Trek. /toungue in cheek

Re:You know

[jafiwam]

You wont be able to find any illegal content hosted by the site no matter how long and hard you look, what you will find however are .torrent files and magnet links. Big difference but not one I'd expect you to be willing to accept.

While technically true. KAT.ph has served up malicious malware-infecting ads and solicitations for what are obviously scams for a long time. It's not like they are saints.

That said it was a good site.... I am not going to bother with the "alternative" domains, those sites always go down shortly afterwards anyway.

Re:You know

[king neckbeard]

I accept the difference between the fruit and the labor itself. I also think that it is ok for a creator to ask money for his fruit or not; or not to mind spreading it without compensation or not wanting that to happen without income.

And there's strike three. 'Compensation' is a term that doesn't make sense in this context. File sharers are sharing amongst themselves, so there is no new labor and no new product. There is nothing be compensated for because there is nothing lost with additional transactions. It has nothing to do with them, so why should they have a say in the matter? You are exposing yourself as someone who can just parrot a bunch of sound byte talking points. If you don't show signs of rational thought soon, I'm done wasting my time with you.

Regarding my producer friend, I can assure you that it is not the home recordings or the global scale that halved his income.

And I can assure you with equal validity that it was the result of the Reptilian Illuminati thwarting him because he is too close to exposing their web of lies. I can also assure you, again with the same validity of your statement, that it's the result of the Tohoku earthquake.

One more example is another friend, a midlist author of YA novels. She makes some money with her books, being translated in a number of languages, it is not enough for her household but essential. She doesn't like the idea of people distributing her work on the internet without her getting compensation.

She can not like it all that she wants, but that doesn't change anything. Realistically, your friend has a far greater enemy in obscurity than filesharing.

Re:You know

[Camembert]

Yes, I understand that, mathematically there is "nothing lost with additional transactions". But, I think that we both agree there are some sales lost, some people would have bought the work if they couldn't get their hands on them for free. Probably a minority of sharers, but still. By the way some of your arguments did sound parotted as well, but at least I didn't mind too much... I will go back to my 2 friends now. One cannot say that their work is priced out ridiculously high, a song on itunes etc costs peanuts, and her paperback or kindle books are well within reach of everyone. You cannot say that the way these works are priced is a bad service for the public or for general culture. We could have another discussion that such works are priced out of reach in poor countries (I fully agree), forming a barrier there. But that is not this discussion. The way I see it: my musician producer friend always has his finger on the pulse so to speak, and he makes a kind of commercial music that is popular amongst clubbing teenagers (and it gives me a headache). He is quite respected with doing work for in essence all the major labels. Yet, for no other reason than the sharing, his income is significantly lower these days. It is not as if he lost his touch or that the labels have dropped him. Regarding my writer friend, she is a practical woman, I expect she'll prefer bread on the table now rather than possible fame in the long run. She in fact will not go obscure soon, her books get consistently good reviews. I can well imagine that teenagers on their weekly allotment, will say: I just grab that music and that YA novel for free so I have more money for things of which I cannot get a copy of for free, like buying new fashion things. That is what happens. I don't think it is the right thing to do. Anyway, thanks for this interesting discussion even it seems to heighten your blood pressure in moments :-)

Re:You know

[king neckbeard]

Yes, I understand that, mathematically there is "nothing lost with additional transactions". But, I think that we both agree there are some sales lost, some people would have bought the work if they couldn't get their hands on them for free. Probably a minority of sharers, but still.

That's not relevant. A hypothetical where they could have made more money doesn't mean that they've lost money. There is no product loss and no additional expenditure or time, therefore there is no loss to be compensated for. The same kinds of losses happen when another business is in the same market and has a product that is in some ways superior, but we call that competition, and generally regard it as a good thing.

One cannot say that their work is priced out ridiculously high, a song on itunes etc costs peanuts, and her paperback or kindle books are well within reach of everyone. You cannot say that the way these works are priced is a bad service for the public or for general culture.

Whether or not a price is good or not is relative to a number of factors too numerous to list. One of the simplest of which being that the price is disproportionate to the quality. It's not unlikely, given that Sturgeon's law pretty much applies to every medium and genre.

The way I see it: my musician producer friend always has his finger on the pulse so to speak, and he makes a kind of commercial music that is popular amongst clubbing teenagers (and it gives me a headache). He is quite respected with doing work for in essence all the major labels.

That might be a key right there. The changes in environment have been a major competitive disadvantage to major labels. They generally employ more or less brute force techniques, which are less effective in this environment. However, their loss has been largely a gain for independent labels and self produced musicians. Another factor might be that the model of selling CDs has gone out of fashion. Major label commercial music had one or two songs, maybe three per album that sold the 12 songs on the CD to 98% of the audience. With iTunes and the like, artists that don't produce an entire album's worth of worthwhile material are only making money off of the singles, so the income is something like a fifth of what it would be otherwise. Cutting the cruft means that there is less fat, and there is less fat on his plate.

Regarding my writer friend, she is a practical woman, I expect she'll prefer bread on the table now rather than possible fame in the long run. She in fact will not go obscure soon, her books get consistently good reviews.

Obscure is relative. Unless your friend's last name is Rowling or Meyer, then filesharing is not hurting her. Those are the people that there's some degree of evidence that she's affected by. For basically everyone else, being popular on filesharing translates to very few lost sales, and a large number of sales gained by greater notoriety.

I don't think it is the right thing to do.

Again, that's not relevant. You can think a number of things are right or wrong to do, but that doesn't matter. And again, you make it about the authors, which is a mistake. Copyright law cares fuck all about the authors. The reason to be concerned is if the creative output or quality falls, which we've seen no indication of.

Re:You know

[Anonymous Coward]

Any more I only seem to torrent things that I already own. Often it is faster to just download an 'illegal' copy than to find the disk in a box somewhere. Other times I opt to just re-buy via steam. If they sold movies and mainstream software I would re-buy those too.

The only time that it at all becomes morally ambiguous for me is when I download something that is cracked merely because the proper version does not work as expected. It is against the law to do so, but then again shouldn't selling a license to something that does not work as advertised also be illegal?

Re:You know

[MysteriousPreacher]

I'm just not seeing causation in your story.

1) Is this broadly representative of the record business, or is it like my arguing for lower pensions across the board by citing the example of some rich London pensioner who lives in a palace and has loads of dogs?

2) Really, all of this decline is due to file sharing? Nothing else happening there? Is he reliant on a segment of the market that's being disproportionately affected by file sharing? Is he a drinker? Is he almost entirely focussed on disco music, and for some odd reason has seen his revenues steadily decline since the 80s? How about 9/11? Oddly enough my income in the IT industry has more than doubled since 9/11. Thanks, Osama!

I agree with you that creators should be allowed to assert control over their works (for a way shorter time period than we currently see). I just think your story of this producer is a bit "my cousin Billy said..."

Re:You know

[LocalH]

Copyright, in its current form, is entitlement. Many people infringe nowadays as "revenge" against media conglomerates who want to lock up our culture.

Re:You know

[coId fjord]

Unless you're suggesting that Congress shouldn't be able to regulate the sale of goods and services within the United States, I think your argument is shit.

Ah, the catch-all argument that the government loves using so they can feel justified in doing just about anything they want with regards to such matters. That said, the constitution does say "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," so if that's not happening, something is indeed wrong.

Naturally, this means that any law you disagree with is thus no longer enforceable and you don't have to worry about the consequences.

That part just seems like a straw man.

Re:You know

[Jane Q. Public]

"What? Someone linked to the site directly above. /. staff do have the ability to remove posts and as such are every bit as liable for links in the comments as for links in the summary."

No, they aren't. This reflects ignorance of how the law in the US actually works. (No insult intended. A great many people don't know how it works.)

First, the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA -- the only good provisions in the DMCA -- free them from liability from any content uploaded by their users... as long as they don't mess with that content.

Another important legal precedent says that if they DO mess with that content, including editing, censoring, or even top-down moderation, then they DO become liable for that content. Because then they are controlling that content, and if they control it they become liable for it. (Question: if you remove one "illegal" post but not another, why would you NOT be responsible for leaving that other post up? The law says you are. You made a choice.)

There is an exception: if a DMCA take-down request comes from an outside party, then they may be obligated to take down that post. That's one of the many BAD provisions of the DMCA, because it imposes a sort of "prior restraint": forcing people to act before there is any proof or court determination of illegal conduct.

So the upshot is: except for stupid parts of the DMCA (that is to say, most of it), they are far better off just leaving content alone, and not trying to censor it. They stand a much lower chance of running into legal difficulties.

New Domain

[cffrost]

http://kickass.to/

No https yet.

Re:New Domain

[cffrost]

For anyone who just want the encryption https provides, you can enter https manually and accept the "wrong domain" warning; I've done so, and confirmed that the kay.ph certificate is compatible.

KAT has been pretty diligent about their certs, so they should have one for .to soon.

Re:New Domain

[Ubi_NL]

Tis is great, Ive never heard of this site untill now. As our local riaa branch cut me off from the pirate bay, this place is brilliant! Thanks MPAA!

Interesting

[dido]

The .PH domain administrator, a certain fellow named Joel Disini whom I once met several years ago, has been known to have treated the domain as his proprietary interest. He has vigorously resisted several efforts over the years to redelegate the domain to the agencies of the Philippine government and other interested organisations, ever since it was granted to him by Jon Postel in 1990, and he has taken a dim view of attempts to control the registry ever since, so I wonder what might have gone down behind the scenes to make this happen.

Re:Interesting

[Jonah Hex]

I posted this earlier but it's buried, looks like no one else caught it though and it relates to your post:

... they weren't seized, at least not according to the blog post 15+ hours before this story appeared on /.

Moving to Kickass.To posted 14 Jun 2013, 14:42 by KickassTorrents

We had to drop Kat.ph as a part of our global maintenance and move to Kickass.to. This was a hard decision, but it was necessary for the further development of KickassTorrents. Stay tuned for more news.

Maybe they gave it up and the Government are now taking credit for it after the fact. Either way, hasn't screwed with their service, still working great. SickBeard Torrent version might need an update, maybe Couchpotato too. - HEX

Re:You're just going to make DNS obsolete

[Osgeld]

few? really?

ok chief

Re:It Would Be Great Fun...

[coId fjord]

3. The real losses are nowhere near what the MPAA and RIAA wants you to believe. If they can sell a song for 99 cents then the actual damage for downloading a song is 99 cents

Actually, copyright infringement causes no real losses; all it does is cause someone to not gain something, and even that is not certain. Yes, it is not even certain that copyright infringement causes someone to not gain money, and that is because it is also not certain that the person would have purchased the product if he/she could not download it.

Re:Impact on torrent traffic?

[Voyager529]

I wonder if there's any visible impact on torrent traffic from this.

If memory serves, kat.ph doesn't have a tracker, or if they do, they're one of several trackers per torrent. Also, because they're a public tracker, even if the tracker went down, most swarms would be able to continue for a while using DHT and other trackerless technologies. If kat.ph went down and remained down, by time the people who had files all had them seeded, the masses would move on to the next major public tracker, as was done with suprnova, mininova, demonoid, and depending on where you live, the pirate bay.

Re:The damage must be incalculable

[Jherek Carnelian]

Wait their currency is actually called... "PHP"? O.o

And their terrorists are MILFs.

A better solution needed

[timmyf2371]

It now seems obvious that downloading torrents from a centralised website has had its day.

Countries all over the world are blocking access to trackers and taking away the domain names, and the centralised nature of trackers has always been a weak point.

What we need is for a major player, e.g. TPB, to step up the game and go TOR only (for website access - actual data transfer would still be over clearnet). By providing access via a TOR hidden service, you reduce or remove the possibility of the site being taken down, you provide a degree of anonymity for website operators and you have the added effect of educating the wider public about the private browsing benefits that TOR allows.