Kickass Torrents Is No More And Its Founder Has Been Arrested

You probably didn’t notice that Kickass Torrents went down last night, because you purchase all your content legally.

But maybe a friend who does pirate their movies and music dropped you a panicked message saying their precious source of Mr. Robot episodes had suddenly gone kaput.

That’s because the domains used by Kickass Torrents (KAT) were yesterday seized by the US government, following a years-long investigation by a special agent with the US Department of Homeland Security. (Yes, it’s that serious.)

The 30-year-old founder and operator (we’ll throw an “alleged” in here) Artem Vaulin was also arrested in Poland and is facing extradition to the U.S.

The States’ have accused him with distributing more than $US1 billion worth of film, music and other content illegally. He is also being charged with copyright infringement and money laundering, ABC News reports.

America’s Justice Department said KAT is the web's 69th most frequently visited site, having eclipsed Pirate Bay to become the number one destination for those seeking pirated media. The value of the site is estimated at more than $US54 million. (Annual advertising revenue ranges between $US12.5 million and $US22.3 million.)

Though Vaulin is in undeniable hot water, a KAT mirror hosted by fellow pirates isoHunt is already live, featuring files from the past eighteen months. As Gizmodo reports, the only thing missing from KickassTorrents.website is KAT’s forums (which is probably a good thing).

Those wily pirates.

IsoHunt’s KAT mirror also invites people to sign a change.org petition (and a whitehouse.gov petition) to free Vaulin.

As of this writing, the latter has little more than 300 signatures, out of its required goal of 100,000.

Photo: USA.