IsoHunt Launches Unofficial KAT Mirror

An anonymous reader writes: Torrent site isoHunt appears to have unofficially resurrected KickassTorrents (also known as Kickass Torrents or just KAT) at kickasstorrents.website. It might look like the original KAT site, which went down yesterday after alleged founder Artem Vaulin was arrested, but upon closer inspection it's simply a basic mirror. The isoHunt team tells me the KAT mirror is hosting files from the last year to year-and-a-half. So no, not everything is available. Furthermore, there is no forum, no community, and no support. And, you shouldn't get too attached, the administrators warn. Disclaimer: Slashdot doesn't necessarily condone piracy -- at least, in most cases.

Comments

Slashdot should condone piracy

[jdavidb]

Disclaimer: Slashdot doesn't condone piracy.

Why not? Everyone should condone "piracy." Piracy enriches our lives and our culture. Copying brings us more of the things we love. The only thing that shouldn't be condoned is using smear words like "piracy" to refer to a basic decent act of human behavior.

Re:Slashdot should condone piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM is also economic warfare. Piracy and DRM balance each other out. The more aggressive one got, so did the other. The concept of IP is imaginary, and as a result, often abused. Nowadays, SaaS is the result and is something we're all going to regret in the long run

Re:Slashdot should condone piracy

[tlhIngan]

Why not? Everyone should condone "piracy." Piracy enriches our lives and our culture. Copying brings us more of the things we love. The only thing that shouldn't be condoned is using smear words like "piracy" to refer to a basic decent act of human behavior.

So why not encourage GPL violators ("pirates" too)? Instead we seem to cheer whenever we find a GPL violator.

Yes, violating the GPL is copyright infringement, aka piracy. (You don't have to agree to the GPL, but if you don't, it falls back to the "All Rights Reserved" copyright. So if you're distributing binaries without source you're violating basic copyright law).

You really cannot have it both ways - if you want to encourage piracy, then you encourage people (and companies) to violate the GPL by extension.

Disclaimer: Slashdot doesn't condone piracy.

[trojjan]

It is indeed a sad day when a site has to declare their affiliation before posting a story.
What's next?
This election is being contested by the most unpopular candidates ever. Disclaimer: We are pro democracy
Current petroleum usage is leading us to a point of no return wrt climate change. Disclaimer: We do not condone pro nuclear groups.
Malware rampant across all major operating systems. Disclaimer: We do not condemn any particular operating system.
Black people are more likely to get killed in altercations with police. Disclaimer: We do not believe in race disparity.

The sad thing is I can continue this for thousands of lines. Slashdot after proving you had been sold out, you really need to say you will be "politically correct" according to your overlords?

/. should encourage sharing

[jbn-o]

So why not encourage GPL violators ("pirates" too)? Instead we seem to cheer whenever we find a GPL violator.

First, we should understand what the propagandistic term "piracy" really means and understand that meaning as separate from sharing—a friendly, neighborly thing to do. As the GNU Project points out in it's list of terms to avoid on "theft": "In general, laws don't define right and wrong. Laws, at their best, attempt to implement justice. If the laws (the implementation) don't fit our ideas of right and wrong (the spec), the laws are what should change. A US judge, presiding over a trial for copyright infringement, recognized that "piracy" and "theft" are smear-words.". This difference gets to the heart of the problem in your point—you're conflating the legal with the ethical and then trying to get others to view all sharing as copyright infringement and all copyright infringement as equivalent because the law frames things in that way.

We should recognize that the terms of the licenses involved between, say, the GNU General Public License (GPL) and a typical Hollywood movie, are radically different when it comes to doing what friends do: share. One can and should share copies of GPL'd programs. It's easy to do, the GPL is easy to comply with simply by also sharing a copy of the complete corresponding source code of the program at the same time as one shares the binary. By contrast, other famously shared copyrighted items (such as most Hollywood movies) aren't legal to share even if done non-commercially and verbatim. So doing the thing that comes naturally with friends, non-commercial and verbatim sharing, is likely not allowed by that movie's license.

Since you mention the GPL, a free software license written by Richard Stallman, this is somewhat akin to what Stallman describes in his talks about the freedoms of free software specifically freedom #2: the freedom to help your neighbour. That's the freedom to make copies and distribute them to others, when you wish. This comes from a 2006-03-09 talk and you can see how the consideration here is akin to the dilemma one faces should a friend ask for a copy of a Hollywood movie:

Freedom two is essential on fundamental ethical grounds, so that you can live an upright, ethical life as a member of your community. If you use a program that does not give you freedom number two, you're in danger of falling at any moment into a moral dilemma. When your friend says "that's a nice program, could I have a copy?" At that moment, you will have to choose between two evils. One evil is: give your friend a copy and violate the licence of the program. The other evil is: deny your friend a copy and comply with the licence of the program.

Once you are in that situation, you should choose the lesser evil. The lesser evil is to give your friend a copy and violate the licence of the program.

[laughter]

Now, why is that the lesser evil? The reason is that we can assume that your friend has treated you well and has been a good person and deserves your cooperation. The reason we can assume this is that in the other case, if a nasty person you don't really like asked you for help, of course you can say "Why should I help you?" So that's an easy case. The hard case is the case where that person has been a good person to you and other people and you would want to help him normally.

Whereas, the developer of the program has deliberately attacked the social solidarity of your community. Deliberately tried to separate you from everyone else in the World. So if you can't help doing wrong in some direction or other, better to aim the wrong at somebody who deserves it, who has done something wrong, rather than at somebody who hasn't done anything wrong.

Howe