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

Better go arrest Google execs

[110010001000]

Google is the biggest distributor of .torrent files I know of.

Re: Better go arrest Google execs

[BlackSabbath]

Agreed. With the right search terms you don't even have to click through to the resulting page, you could just copy the magnet URL directly from the search summary.

Re:Better go arrest Google execs

[PocketPick]

There is a difference between providing a general purpose search engine that serves millions of legitimate needs (as well as a handful of illegitimate needs) and a site whose sole purpose is to provide people with easy access to electronic movies, music, games and other software that they would normally be required to purchase.

That difference? Intent.

I'm not saying that copyright law isn't broken, and certainly any service can be abused (including Google's search engine). But seriously...the organizational goals and company operations for Google and KickassTorrents are nothing alike.

For a modern, well-functioning commerce and legal framework to work, law enforcement have to be able to distinguish between the two. It's not black and white.

Re:Better go arrest Google execs

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please. YouTube is the #1 pirate site online. I can listen to just about every music file on there, in full, and can easily download it if I so choose. I can watch long scenes from movies and TV shows...in some cases, entire episodes and full movies. I can watch complete runs of video games. And best of all, Google isn't liable for any of it...they actually make the content holder have to sift through their site to find the content...and until then, they make money and KEEP THE MONEY from content deemed infringing.

Re: Better go arrest Google execs

[ZipK]

It's not HTML that's the problem. It's computers. It's SILICON. We need to impound all of the world's beaches.

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:Better go arrest Google execs

[110010001000]

A handful of illegitimate needs? Google is the largest search engine of .torrent files on the web. Hardly a handful. Plus if you do a video search they link to tons of videos that are infringing on copyright. They even provide video previews of the illegal material on the search page!

Be careful what you wish for

[BitterOak]

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

Re:Be careful what you wish for

[110010001000]

The Internet as we knew it ended long ago. Eventually it will be locked up tighter than you-know-what.

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.

Re:as usual

[nnull]

Downloading torrents is a worse than murder, rape and paedophilia, didn't you know that?

"Millions of dollars"?

[Gamer_2k4]

What "millions of dollars" did the site generate? I can understand a claim of lost profits for the content owners, perhaps, but it's not like that translates into earned revenue for the site owners. And if they made money from paid memberships or ads or something, that's hardly illegal.

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.

Re: "Millions of dollars"?

[dissy]

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

KAT had all their servers located in Canada-America and Sweden-America, while Kim Dotcom had his servers located in America-America.

While it's been obvious from legal history over the past couple years that Canada and Sweden operate under American law only now, many people are not yet used to that and incorrectly assume those are other countries with their own laws.

That confusion is what lead the parent poster to ask their question. It's just your explanation is equally as confusing of an explanation as it implies the servers were located within the old traditional US borders when that is obviously an incorrect statement.

Instead you should have explained that the servers located in Canada are fully held under US law as if they were located somewhere in the USA.

Be weary foreigners!

[xession]

If you interact with US citizens, you are apparently subject to US laws. No borders. No sovereignty. You are a pawn in the global arena. Stepping outside your square will be dealt with swiftly and severely. Don't fuck with the US money /*holders*/ hoarders!

Jurisdiction

[jdavidb]

I don't understand why someone in Ukraine is liable for violating the US's stupid copyright rules.

Re:Jurisdiction

[Jhon]

The argument is that he had a presence in the US (server) which violated "US's stupid copyright rules". If I was in another country and remote controlled a drone in to the US and blew something up I would be violating US law. Yeah, it's a horrible analogy but it's about as close as you can get where you can visualize the argument.

I don't think it's going to be an easy thing for the prosecutors to prove WHERE he violated US law but that is kind of not an issue any more. KAT is down and essentially gone. The message has been sent -- you dip your toe in the torrent waters above a certain level and your life will be turned upside-down.

Your tax dollars at work.

[Snufu]

Because we have solved crime and inequality in the U.S., our tax funded law enforcement and legal system can now focus its resources on foreign torrent sites, because they represent the next largest threat to everyday Americans.

Re: Your tax dollars at work.

[easyTree]

What the hell? I had no idea ISIS ran a tirrent site. Hook us up bro...

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.