kickass torrents – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Kickass Torrents Creator Can't Get Criminal Case Tossed Out

from the moving-onward dept

A year ago, we noted that Kickass Torrents had received the Megaupload treatment, getting hit with criminal charges and having its owner, Artem Vaulin, arrested in a foreign country (in this case, Poland). As we noted in looking over the original complaint, there were some significant concerns (similar to the ones we had with the Megaupload case) concerning whether or not running a service that other people used to infringe could possibly make you guilty of criminal copyright infringement.

The key issue: there is no “secondary liability” concept in criminal copyright law. There is such a thing in civil copyright law, whereby if you’re found to be “inducing” copyright infringement (via clear and deliberate statements and steps) you can be found to have to have infringed — but that’s not the case for criminal law. The case against Vaulin (as with Kim Dotcom) tried to get around this by arguing a few different things, which we’ll discuss below. Vaulin is fighting extradition in Poland, but in the meantime, had asked the federal court in Illinois to drop the case already, due to the failure to show actual criminal infringement by Vaulin.

Such an effort was always going to be at least something of a long shot, as courts will tend to give a lot of deference to the DOJ, and now Judge John Lee has rejected the request (as was first reported by the Hollywood Reporter).

The first issue the judge had to review was whether Vaulin could even bring his motion in the first place. The DOJ, playing hardball, argued that because Vaulin was fighting extradition to a country that he was not from and had no connection to, he shouldn’t be allowed to make any motions in court under the “fugitive disentitlement doctrine” (again, there are similarities here to the DOJ declaring Kim Dotcom a fugitive for fighting extradition — but that was in a separate effort to get to keep all of Dotcom’s assets). As the name suggests, “fugitive disentitlement doctrine” says that those who are running from the law can’t show up in court to make their arguments. And… that makes some amount of sense for actual “fugitives” who are hiding and no one knows how to find them. But that’s an entirely different situation when you’re fighting against extradition to a country you have no connection to.

Unfortunately, the court agrees with the DOJ that the fugitive disentitlement doctrine can apply here, and thus Vaulin’s motion is rejected on that basis alone. It cites a few cases on this — though most do appear to involve people who are more like actual fugitives in that they left the US to escape US law enforcement. However, the court does find one case, In re: Kashamu that involved a Nigerian national who was resisting extradition in a drug smuggling case. That case is precedent, and while I think it’s decided incorrectly, the district court can’t just ignore that precedent. And thus:

Based on these authorities, and in light of the principles undergirding the doctrine, the Court is persuaded that the elements of the fugitive disentitlement doctrine are met in this case. All three principles that the Supreme Court discussed in Degen?enforcement and mutuality, redressing the indignity of absence, and encouraging voluntary surrender?are implicated here. As long as Vaulin is in Poland, he is not within the Court?s reach. And, as far as the Court is aware, he is actively resisting extradition efforts. His attorneys represented at the most recent status hearing that there is a ?real possibility? that he will agree to appear here, but also indicated that he is actively appealing the Polish courts? decision to extradite him, a process which could take years. Thus, insofar as Vaulin is interested in participating here, he appears willing to do so only from a safe distance.

That said, the court recognizes that the Supreme Court has urged courts to apply fugitive disentitlement “with caution” so it actually digs into the merits of the motion to dismiss. And that’s where things get troublesome. There are a few different arguments the court has to respond to, so we’ll take them in turn. The first is whether or not criminal conduct occurred in the United States at all. Vaulin and Kickass Torrents are not in the US and thus they argue that if there was any criminal activity it can’t be tied to the US. The DOJ argues in response that Vaulin is still guilty of “aiding and abetting” criminal copyright infringement in the US. And the court agrees:

But the core theory underlying the indictment is that Vaulin aided, abetted, and conspired with users of his network to commit criminal copyright infringement in the United States. The first paragraph of the indictment, which is incorporated throughout, alleges that ?[m]illions? of Vaulin?s users resided in the United States…. The indictment goes on to allege that these users ?uploaded? and ?download[ed]? content,… and ?obtain[ed] [ ] desired infringed copyrighted content,?…. When viewed in a light most favorable to the Government, as the Court must do at this preliminary stage, the indictment alleges acts of domestic infringement.

But… that totally misses the argument that Vaulin is actually making. No one denies that there were people in the US who used the platform for infringement. But just because people are using the platform for infringement, doesn’t make it criminal infringement. For something to be criminal copyright infringement it has to reach a much higher bar than just “people downloaded stuff.” That may suffice (with certain caveats) for civil infringement, but criminal requires a lot more which the court ignores in that paragraph. The court also says that because Kickass Torrents had some servers in Chicago, “overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy occurred in the United States.” I’m troubled by the fact that the court completely brushes past the differences in civil and criminal copyright infringement here, because it’s a big difference.

The second argument proffered by Vaulin, is that torrent tracker files are not the copyright-covered work, and thus downloading or distributing torrent files cannot lead to criminal liability. The court claims that this argument “misunderstands the indictment.” But… that’s wrong. I’d argue the judge’s reply “misunderstands the argument.” Here’s what the judge says:

The indictment is not concerned with the mere downloading or distribution of torrent files. Granted, the indictment describes these files and charges Vaulin with operating a website dedicated to hosting and distributing them… But the protected content alleged to have been infringed in the indictment is a number of movies and other copyright-protected media that users of Vaulin?s network purportedly downloaded and distributed without authorization from the copyright holders…. The indictment describes the torrent files merely as a means of obtaining the copyrighted movies and other media.

But… uh… that totally misses the point of the argument. The torrent files are not copyright-covered content. Nowhere does Vaulin or his site distribute or reproduce copyright-covered content. Many, I’m sure, will argue that this is semantics and nitpicking, but it’s actually quite important. Yes, a torrent file can then be used to infringe, but it’s the end user potentially doing the infringement — in the same way that a VCR can be used to infringe, but it’s not Sony who is held liable for that infringement (even in the civil sense, let alone the criminal). This is the very basis of intermediary liability. But the court skips over all that and says “yeah, but there’s infringement.” Well, no shit there’s infringement. But the question is who’s actually doing the infringement. Because if it’s not Vaulin, then, this case has a problem. And the court misses that entire argument and just says “there’s lots of infringement.” That’s… bad.

This part though, does make one claim that, if true, would be a lot of trouble for Vaulin: that there’s evidence that Vaulin may have also run some direct download websites. If the evidence shows that Vaulin/Kickass Torrents itself was hosting infringing content, then that could be a much bigger deal and make the case a lot more legit. But even here, the court kind of breezily brushes by this fairly important point, and lumps Vaulin in with “his co-defendants’ distribution of copyrighted content through direct download websites.” So, it’s at least unclear to me if the claim is that Vaulin himself ran direct download websites (which would be very bad for Vaulin) or that some unnamed “others” did so, in which case, the specifics matter a great deal.

Next up is the key argument, which we noted up top, about there being no “secondary liability” in criminal copyright infringement. The DOJ responds — and the court accepts — that they’re not actually charging him with secondary liability for criminal copyright infringement, but rather “conspiracy” and “aiding and abetting” for criminal copyright infringement. Here, unfortunately, I disagree with the argument that Vaulin’s lawyers made that the statute on “aiding and abetting” simply doesn’t apply at all to copyright law (even though there is some debate among scholars on this). As I’ve noted in the past, I do think it does apply, but that the standards for aiding and abetting are much different than the standard for basic secondary liability. Aiding and abetting requires “a tight nexus between the mental state of the defendant and the ultimate criminal act committed by another.” Merely providing a platform that many people use — and very rarely used for criminal copyright infringement (again, a much higher standard) — makes it difficult to see how Vaulin could qualify as aiding and abetting.

But the court ignores all of that, focusing on the question of whether or not there even is aiding and abetting for criminal copyright law — and saying that there is. And, because of that, there’s no discussion of whether or not what Vaulin did qualifies as actual aiding and abetting. It’s just… assumed. Now, it’s possible that this is (1) because the argument wasn’t raised by Vaulin or (2) this is not the stage to raise that issue, and perhaps that’s true. But it does feel like the court wandered down a side path here, and ignored the larger question.

Vaulin makes one final argument on this issue — that if conspiracy and aiding and abetting do apply to criminal copyright law, they should be “void for vagueness.” This is kind of a “shoot the moon” argument, saying that it’s so vague that people couldn’t understand if they were “aiding and abetting” criminal copyright infringement. Here, the court mainly relies on the fact that criminal copyright law is clear. But… again, that ignores whether or not it’s clear what “aiding and abetting” criminal copyright law is. Instead, the court pivots and says that Vaulin’s “behavior” — such as moving Kickass Torrents to new domains — showed that he knew what he was doing was illegal. There’s a little bit of a logical leap there — as one could just as easily say that he was moving domains and kept the site running because he believed it was perfectly legal, and he felt the foreign court orders were wrong… but… that’s probably a weak overall argument.

There’s one last argument, which is that the government never shows anyone who actually criminally infringed on copyright. It claims that Vaulin aided and abetted such infringement… but not the actual infringement. The court basically says “this doesn’t matter” or, at the very least, it doesn’t matter at this stage of the process. At trial, it notes, the DOJ will have to show infringement.

All in all, this isn’t a hugely surprising ruling — but it is disappointing. It appears to get distracted and sidetracked and confused on a few different issues, without clearly addressing the actual underlying arguments. As happens all to often in copyright cases, the issues get blurry when judges start focusing on “but… all this infringement is happening.” That may be true, but the question is who is actually liable for it, and whether or not it’s actually criminal. And that requires a much higher bar, and the court fails to actually show that those bars are cleared. That doesn’t bode well for Vaulin.

Filed Under: aiding and abetting, artem vaulin, copyright, criminal copyright, doj, fugitive disentitlement, secondary liability
Companies: kickass torrents

Guy Arrested Over KickassTorrents Blocked From Talking To His US Attorney

from the due-process? dept

Just a few weeks ago, we had lawyer Ira Rothken on our podcast (it’s a really great episode, so check it out if you haven’t heard it yet). Rothken has been involved in lots of big copyright cases, but is probably most well-known these days as Kim Dotcom’s US lawyer. In that episode we talked a lot about the Kim Dotcom situation, but also spent a fair amount of time on the case of Artem Vaulin, who was arrested in Poland for running the search engine KickassTorrents. The US is seeking to extradite him to stand trial in Illinois. On the podcast, Rothken expressed some concerns that he hadn’t been able to speak directly to Vaulin and noted that he was working on it.

Nearly a month has passed, and it appears that officials are still blocking Vaulin from communicating with Rothken. TorrentFreak has the story:

Even though nearly two months have passed, the alleged KickassTorrents owner still hasn?t been allowed to meet with his U.S. defense team. A clear due process violation, according to Rothken.

?We still have not had an opportunity, nor have we been granted access, to meet with Artem Vaulin in prison in Poland. So we now believe that this has ripened into an international due process problem.

?We believe that Artem?s rights are now being impacted with his inability to communicate with U.S. counsel,? Rothken tells TF.

Vaulin is allowed to meet with his Polish lawyer, but since the charges against him are in the US, under US law, and the key issue involves extradition to the US, it’s ridiculous that he’s unable to consult with a US lawyer.

?There?s no way that there could be a fair trial in the United States, or a fair extradition process, without Artem being able to have access to U.S. counsel, to learn his rights, to be able to galvanize the evidence, and to do so in a robust and expedient manner,?

It seems quite bizarre that Vaulin is being denied access to his lawyer. Once again, as with the Dotcom case, it feels like a situation where officials are purposely stacking the deck against the person they’re accusing, doing everything possible to make sure that they’re pressured into cutting a deal, rather than actually being able to fight for their rights.

Filed Under: artem vaulin, copyright, due process, ira rothken, poland
Companies: kickass torrents

Kickass Torrents Asks Justice Department To Drop Case

from the i'm-sure-the-doj-will-laugh dept

Last month, we looked at the criminal complaint against the alleged operator of the torrent search engine Kickass Torrents (KAT) and raised a number of questions about the complaint. We noted that it appeared that the alleged operator, Arten Vaulin, was getting the “Megaupload treatment,” as there were a number of similarities between the two cases and the legal leaps of logic employed by the Justice Department in making their case. Thus, it was little surprise that Ira Rothken, who has managed the legal efforts for Kim Dotcom/Megaupload, has now signed on to represent Vaulin as well. His first move, last week, was to send the DOJ a letter, asking it to drop the case. While I would imagine that the request resulted in some hearty laughter among DOJ lawyers, it does lay out some of the key arguments that Vaulin will likely make as the case moves forward.

The key issue — as we pointed out in our post — and which is also true of the Dotcom/Megaupload case — is that the DOJ appears to be making up a secondary liability for criminal infringement claim, which does not exist in the law.

This alleged criminal copyright case arises out of an erroneous theory of criminal copyright law advanced by the United States that attempts to hold Artem Vaulin (“Defendant”) criminally liable for the alleged infringing acts of KAT’s search engine users. Discussion of Mr. Vaulin?s involvement in KAT shall await another day. Distilled down, in terms of technology, nothing more is alleged in the CC than that a visitor to defendants’ alleged “KickAssTorrents” (“KAT”) site can take advantage of automated search processes embodied there to search for and locate “dot torrent” files. Such files contain textual information assembled by automated processes and do NOT contain copyrighted content. After leaving the defendants’ alleged websites, the visitor may stop and do nothing or use the data in such torrent files in conjunction with third party “client” software; and that pursuit may, according to the desires of the user and the uncertain nature of the availability of third party files on the internet, lead to both infringing and non-infringing files being constructed that are located elsewhere on the Internet. By the time any possible primary infringement by a former KAT visitor could ever occur the visit to the site is long over.

The indictment does not even come close to alleging direct “willful” copyright infringement as KAT contains and transmits no content files. Defendants cannot be held criminally responsible for what users do after they leave the KAT search engine behind. The Copyright Act does not criminalize secondary copyright infringement…. The Criminal statute at issue namely Section 506 only imposes liability for direct, willful infringement that causes specific damages…. The government?s copyright conspiracy theory for similar reasons fails as a matter of law. Such a conspiracy theory is little more than a novel back door attempt to improperly argue judge made civil secondary infringement in a criminal case. Trying to hold KAT criminally responsible for the entire global BitTorrent network does not pass muster.

Later, the letter points out how the failure of the complaint to point to any actual direct infringement shows just how weak the case is:

The absence of allegations of specific unauthorized downloads or direct infringements in the complaint is not inadvertent: rather it is a side effect of how far removed defendant is from the potential infringing event and it is part of an improper criminal complaint that purports to impose presumptive criminal liability on a BitTorrent search engine for alleged offsite infringements. It is also a sign that the government is eager to improperly introduce concepts of judge made civil law into a criminal statutory analysis.

The letter also notes that the Homeland Security Investigations agent who wrote the affidavit attached to the criminal complaint clearly did not understand how bittorrent works and completely misrepresented the technology in a way that unfairly represents how KAT and bittorrent actually work. For example:

Paragraph 19 of the Affidavit inaccurately states: ?Between on or about June 24, 2016, and on or about June 30, 2016, HSI Special Agents downloaded from the Northern District of Illinois the following prerelease movies from KAT (at Subject Domain 4).? There was no movie or other content on KAT that could ever be downloaded and therefore no direct infringements could have occurred on KAT…. Infringements that occur after users, including HSI Special Agents, leave the KAT site behind cannot be criminally actionable against KAT.

The case by the DOJ also relies very heavily on the fact that the HSI investigator was able to find a torrent for a pre-release copy of Captain America: Civil War via a KAT search. The case needs this, because it’s the only way it gets even remotely close to criminal copyright infringement (remember, there’s a big difference between criminal and civil copyright infringement, and individuals downloading/uploading stuff won’t cut it (especially if there’s no money in it). The complaint tries to get around this by focusing (almost exclusively) on the Captain America pre-release, because there is criminal infringement for pre-release works. But, again, Rothken points out the problems with this argument:

The only copyrighted work identified in Counts Three and Four is ?Captain America: Civil War,? referenced in paragraph 19, discussed supra. There is no evidence to support the allegations as ?Captain America: Civil War? or as to any specific work. The lack of evidence is not surprising given that the KAT technology did not store or transmit any content. If a user committed copyright infringement, it is only after they left the KAT servers behind.

It is settled that liability for direct copyright infringement cannot be based on provision of information services to individuals that such individuals use to commit infringement. More specifically it is also well settled law that mere hyperlinks and their more attenuated cousin, torrent files, cannot constitute direct copyright infringement. In brief, because KAT did not copy anything or transmit content, it cannot be charged with direct copyright infringement.

It also challenges the weird DOJ argument that KAT failed to comply with the DMCA notices it sent. As the letter points out, that’s not a criminal offense.

Alleged failures to comply with the conditions of a DMCA civil defense does not create a criminal cause of action. There is no Act of Congress establishing a crime for violations of the DMCA safe harbors. The DMCA is a defense in the civil context of contributory and vicarious liability for copyright infringement committed by third parties and of liability for intentionally inducing third parties to commit copyright infringement.

The Government knowing that Judge made civil law for internet secondary copyright infringement could not be applied in the criminal statutory context is attempting to use the vague and novel theory of criminal ?conspiracy? to try to argue it through a back door and such arguments fail as a matter of law. There is a scarcity of judicial opinions in contested criminal copyright cases that discuss how a criminal conspiracy theory could apply to mere internet hyperlinks or torrent files/trackers. The government by throwing against the wall the criminal conspiracy theory without any statutory support from Congress is trying to argue Judge made civil common law by analogy. Common-law civil liability principles cannot be extended to impose criminal liability. Crimes must be specifically defined by Congress. Federal crimes ?are solely creatures of statute.?

There are a few other points made in there, including laughing off the “conspiracy” claims, since the DOJ only named one person and can’t legitimately argue a “conspiracy” between KAT’s operator and its users. There are also jurisdictional questions about trying the case in Illinois (or under US law at all) and of course, the silliness of including a money laundering claim.

There’s basically zero chance that this leads to the DOJ dropping the case, but I imagine that much of this letter (perhaps verbatim) will show up in court before long…

Filed Under: artem vaulin, copyright, criminal copyright, doj, ira rothken, kim dotcom
Companies: kickass torrents

Kickass Torrents Gets The Megaupload Treatment: Site Seized, Owner Arrested And Charged With Criminal Infringement

from the because-of-course dept

So just as the US government itself is accused of being engaged in massive copyright infringement itself, the Justice Department proudly announces that it has charged the owner of Kickass Torrents with criminal copyright infringement claims. The site has also been seized and the owner, Artem Vaulin, has been arrested in Poland. As with the original Kim Dotcom/Megaupload indictment, the full criminal complaint against Vaulin is worth reading.

As with the case against Dotcom/Megaupload, the DOJ seems to ignore the fact that there is no such thing as secondary liability in criminal infringement. That’s a big concern. Even though Kickass Torrents does not host the actual infringing files at all, the complaint argues that Vaulin is still legally responsible for others doing so. But that’s not actually how criminal copyright infringement works. The complaint barely even shows how Vaulin could be liable for the infringement conducted via Kickass Torrents.

But, of course, that doesn’t matter because the guy at Homeland Security Investigations (formerly: ICE: Immigrations & Customs Enforcement) just spoke to the MPAA and the MPAA said that Kickass Torrents had no permission to link to their content. Yes, link.

As part of the investigation, I have communicated with representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) regarding this investigation. The representatives provided me with information the MPAA had developed about KAT, among other websites. The representatives stated that the MPAA closely monitors KAT and that a significant portion of the movies available on KAT are protected by copyright. The representatives also specified that the MPAA has not granted permission to KAT to index, link, frame, transmit, retransmit, provide access to, or otherwise aid or assist those who distribute and reproduce infringing copies of copyrighted motion picture or television content of MPAA members.

Here’s the thing: most of those things listed above are not rights granted by the copyright act. The copyright act is pretty specifically limited to a few rights, including reproduction and distribution. But, again, note the games played in the complaint: “index, link, frame, transmit, retransmit, provide access to” don’t directly infringe on the stated copyright exclusive rights (yes, there are some cases where some of the above may infringe on some of the exclusive rights, but it’s not particularly cut and dry). So instead, the government tosses in this “otherwise aid or assist those who distribute and reproduce infringing copies of copyrighted motion picture or television content.”

So, you see, once again, the government is creating a form of secondary liability for copyright infringement that does not exist in the law. That’s a problem. Because that’s not how criminal copyright law works. At all.

Furthermore, the complaint goes on about how KAT, as it calls Kickass Torrents, rejected DMCA takedown notices for a variety of reasons, but leaves out the fact that KAT is not an American company and is not under the jurisdiction of US laws. So I’m not entirely clear why US copyright laws apply here. The best they can do is note that they found a few servers that were apparently in Chicago.

The complaint spends lots of time on the fact that KAT makes a fair bit of money from advertising revenue. But, again, I’m not entirely clear how that’s relevant to the claim of criminal copyright infringement. The implicit argument is clearly “people go to KAT to get infringing content, the site makes advertising from all that traffic, thus the revenue is ill-gotten gains.” But… again that relies on the idea that KAT itself is engaged in criminal behavior. Creating a popular tool for finding content — some of which may be infringing — and then making money from advertising, are separate things. It seems wrong to make this weird if->then conditional assumption that just because the site made lots of money it was infringing.

No one is suggesting that Kickass Torrents was not regularly used by individuals to infringe on copyrights. It was. A lot. And you can argue how horrible that is and how it was killing Hollywood and all that — but the specifics here do matter. The same arguments were made about the VCR for years. After all, the MPAA insisted that it was used exclusively to infringe on content for years until they finally realized that it was a good idea to release content for the home video market. And, again, the US government isn’t allowed to make up criminal liability concepts that aren’t actually in the law. They, and their supporters, of course will now argue that it’s not about secondary liability, but about “aiding and abetting.” But that argument doesn’t fly either. The standards for aiding and abetting are much more involved — and would require that the actual infringement be criminal. But that won’t fly, because the individuals downloading via Kickass Torrents weren’t violating criminal copyright law themselves.

In other words, the DOJ is trying to argue that helping a bunch of people engaged in civil copyright infringement magically turns into criminal aiding and abetting. But that’s not how the law works.

Meanwhile, the DOJ’s press release on this is filled with all the usual insane bluster:

“Copyright infringement exacts a large toll, a very human one, on the artists and businesses whose livelihood hinges on their creative inventions,” said U.S. Attorney Fardon. “Vaulin allegedly used the Internet to cause enormous harm to those artists. Our Cybercrimes unit at the U.S. Attorney?s Office in Chicago will continue to work with our law enforcement partners around the globe to identify, investigate and prosecute those who attempt to illegally profit from the innovation of others.”

Funny. Is he also going to charge the US Navy for its massive copyright infringement? Or is that not the kind of copyright infringement harm Fardon goes after?

“Vaulin is charged with running today?s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits. His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice.”

The 1billionofcopyrightedmaterialsisanicetouch,butagainrepresentsmerelytheestimatedcoverprice,notanyactuallossestotheindustry.NotthattheDOJwantstoadmitthat.Butthenextguyisevenworse,nolongerjustclaimingthatover1 billion of copyrighted materials is a nice touch, but again represents merely the estimated cover price, not any actual losses to the industry. Not that the DOJ wants to admit that. But the next guy is even worse, no longer just claiming that over 1billionofcopyrightedmaterialsisanicetouch,butagainrepresentsmerelytheestimatedcoverprice,notanyactuallossestotheindustry.NotthattheDOJwantstoadmitthat.Butthenextguyisevenworse,nolongerjustclaimingthatover1 billion was distributed, but directly stating that Vaulin stole $1 billion.

“Artem Vaulin was allegedly running a worldwide digital piracy website that stole more than $1 billion in profits from the U.S. entertainment industry,” said Executive Associate Director Edge. “Protecting legitimate commerce is one of HSI?s highest priorities. With the cooperation of our law enforcement partners, we will continue to aggressively bring to justice those who enrich themselves by stealing the creative work of U.S. artists.”

Aren’t law enforcement people supposed to actually know the law? There was no stealing. There may have been copyright infringement using the tool that Vaulin built, but that’s not stealing.

“Investigating cyber-enabled schemes is a top priority for CI,” said Chief Weber. “Websites such as the one seized today brazenly facilitate all kinds of illegal commerce. Criminal Investigation is committed to thoroughly investigating financial crimes, regardless of the medium. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to unravel this and other complex financial transactions and money laundering schemes where individuals attempt to conceal the true source of their income and use the Internet to mask their true identity.”

Illegal commerce? It was basically a search engine for free content. What illegal commerce happened there?

Yes, yes, lots of infringement happened via the site. No one denies that. But having law enforcement folks stand up and make clueless statements like this suggest they don’t even understand what Kickass Torrents did, and they just want to puff themselves up and look good for Hollywood.

Meanwhile: does anyone really believe that this move will cause anyone who used KAT to suddenly go back to purchasing movies?

Filed Under: aiding and abetting, artem vaulin, copyright, criminal copyright infringement, dhs, doj, hsi, ice, secondary liability
Companies: kickass torrents, mpaa

Philippine Record Labels Get Government To Play Whac-A-Mole With Kickass Torrents

from the no-prizes dept

Around and around we go, when the futility will stop, nobody knows. I’m referring, of course, to a large swath of government and industry groups around the world that apparently just love to play whac-a-mole with torrent sites, which don’t host infringing files. If you’re not familiar with the carnival game of the same name, it goes something like this. A mole pops out of a hole and you bludgeon that little bastard with a man-hammer. Then another one pops up from another hole. After bashing that one, another one pops out elsewhere. This goes on for exactly as much time as it takes the person playing to decide it would be much more productive to consume thirty corn dogs and puke all over themselves.

The face that launched a thousand mallets
Image source: CC BY 2.0

The latest challenger in this stupid, stupid game? The Philippines. At the request of the Filipino record industry, with some help from their US counterparts, the government seized infamous torrent tracker site Kickass Torrents. The government notes that they’re only following the lead of the United Kingdom, who similarly censored KAT back in February. So, once again, we have private industry managing to get government to act as their knee-cap hit squad. Rather, that would be a decent description if the mole wasn’t able to simply pop back up out of another hole, which it did.

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 seize of the main domain name. The torrent site hasn’t given up and is operating as usual under a new domain name.

In other words, this was a pointless exercise in parlor game futility. Instead of finding new ways to compete, the recording industry would rather whack away at those pesky moles. My advice? Well, I suggest, as always, corn dogs.

Filed Under: copyright, philippines, torrents, whac-a-mole
Companies: kickass torrents

UK Lets The Recording Industry Decide What Websites To Censor

from the incredible dept

Having already kicked down the internet censorship door by ordering that ISPs block access to The Pirate Bay, the UK’s High Court has expanded the list of sites to block based on complaints from BPI about which sites it believes are responsible for piracy. And, so, just like that, those in the UK will find Kickass Torrents, H33T and Fenopy blocked. I don’t know anything about these three sites. So, for all I know, they could be horrible, horrible actors in all of this, but even so, having a court order them completely blocked from access based on statements from BPI — a commercial party who clearly would have a bias against upstart, disruptive competitors — seems crazy. Again, take a look at the history of the entertainment industry attacking every single new type of distribution technology. And now the UK High Court is allowing them to do this to the level of flat out censoring sites.

Filed Under: blocks, censorship, copyright, high court, isps, takedowns, uk
Companies: bpi, fenopy, h33t, kickass torrents, the pirate bay