US Unveils Charges Against KickassTorrents, Names Two More Defendants (arstechnica.com)

A total of three men are said to be operators of file-sharing site KickassTorrents (KAT), according to U.S. prosecutors. Last month, federal authorities arrested the 30-year-old Ukrainian mastermind of KAT, Artem Vaulin, and formally charged him with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. Two other Ukrainians were named in the new indictment (PDF): Levgen (Eugene) Kutsenko and Oleksander (Alex) Radostin. While only Vaulin has been arrested, bench warrants have been issue for the arrest of all three men. Ars Technica reports: "Prosecutors say the three men developed and maintained the site together and used it to 'generate millions of dollars from the unlawful distribution of copyright-protected media, including movies, [...] television shows, music, video games, computer software, and electronic books.' They gave out 'Reputation' and 'User Achievement' awards to users who uploaded the most popular files, including a special award for users who had uploaded more than 1,000 torrents. The indictment presents a selection of the evidence that the government intends to use to convict the men, and it isn't just simple downloads of the copyrighted movies. The government combed through Vaulin's e-mails and traced the bitcoins that were given to him via a 'donation' button."

Comments

Re:Better go arrest Google execs

[nnull]

Google made downloading music even easier than Napster ever did with better quality audio and stream while I download to boot!

Re: "Millions of dollars"?

[Catbeller]

The servers DO have to be paid for. Making millions in revenue is not the same as millions in profit. Not that that will be mentioned.
How can we arrest people in the Ukraine? Ah, I remember. We sanctioned trade to the Ukraine until they signed our IP treaty.

Re: "Millions of dollars"?

[ArchieBunker]

They arrested this guy because he had a server located somewhere in the USA. The same way they went after Kim Dotcom.

A moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's all just take a moment to honor the people that sacrifice so much for us. Without them, there wouldn't be a one-stop shop for commercial free content that can be obtained while using a VPN service. As an added bonus, nobody knows when you pause, rewind, fast forward, adjust the volume etc.

Re:Be careful what you wish for

[jenningsthecat]

If anyone at Google gets arrested for linking to infringing content, it will be the end of the Internet as we know it.

If anyone at Google gets arrested for linking to infringing content, it will be the beginning of civilization as we used to know it. You know, that short, golden age when corporate overlords were at least occasionally arrested and jailed for breaking the law, when the average citizen had at least a small say in the policies enacted by their elected representatives, and when corporations actually cared about what their customers thought because those customers were still capable of hurting them financially.

Arrests at Google would be a possible sign of the turning of the tide; hope that 'government by the people, for the people' would stop being an empty, embarrassing slogan; perhaps a harbinger of the playing field at last being levelled, where there would be no distinction before the law between Artem Vaulin and Sergey Brin. Yeah, I know it will never happen, but it's nice to dream sometimes.

BTW, it seems pretty likely that if Vaulin and company had managed to become sufficiently rich and well-connected before the heat was turned up on KAT, they'd be enjoying the kind of immunity and spurious respect that Page and Brin now take for granted. And PS, the Internet might be a more interesting, more vibrant, fairer place if the Googletards and slagvertisers and marketing wankers had left it the fuck alone.

Re:Be careful what you wish for

[AHuxley]

If the web 2.0 internet gets that boring, people will just return to IRC, BBS, point to point networks with servers, clients, and trackers i.e. systems with web 2.0 gui. Private invites via forums.

Is this going to make media sales soar?

[robcfg]

No. And the more they push the less I'm buying. It's really that simple.

Re:Is this going to make media sales soar?

[Opportunist]

That doesn't even matter. What matters is the shareholder value. Allow me to explain.

What's the value of a company? Well, mostly its assets. What's the assets of a company that has no real assets but only virtual ones, i.e. "IP"? That depends on how much they control that IP and its distribution. If the distribution of the IP is possible without them getting compensated for it, the essential value is zero.

No, not in reality. In the heads of investors. Reality doesn't enter that equation.

So you won't buy anything, neither will I and most likely the crap not being available on a torrent cannot even be measured let alone noticed by looking at the sales. That doesn't matter, though. What matters is that their IP retains its perceived value and thus the shareholder value stays up.