Kickass Torrents Owner Gets Arrested
If you are a person who uses Internet regularly, then you must have heard about Kickass Torrents. It is the biggest torrent site of today. Or, at least it was. Several weeks ago, the users of the site may have noticed that the website stopped working. The reason behind this is the arrest of the alleged owner of Kickass Torrents, Artem Vaulin. Artem Vaulin is a 30-year-old resident of Ukraine and he was arrested in a joint operation by the US authorities with the Polish police. The main domain has been seized and when visited, it displays the well-known Homeland Security/Department of Justice seizure banner.
Vaulin is accused of many crimes, including copyright infringement and money laundering. According to the official reports, more than $1 billion of illegal content has been distributed. The US government requested that Artem Vaulin answers for his crimes in front of the US court, despite being Ukrainian citizen. Vaulin will be represented in the court by Ira Rothkem, the Kim Dotcom’s lawyer.
Leslie R. Caldwell, the prosecutor, stated the following:
“Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials. 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 popularity of KickassTorrents even exceeded the popularity of the well-known Pirate Bay. After The Pirate Bay was shut down in 2014 for a short period of time, Kickass Torrents took over. The site became the main destination for those who wanted to get illegal downloads. According to the Justice Department, KickassTorrents received 50 million unique visitors every month. This number of visitors is much higher than the controversial ‘The Pirate Bay’ would get.
Kickass Torrents Main Domain For Sale
All the fuss about Kickass Torrents started 21 days ago with the arrest of its owner. And now, Torrent freaks reported that KickassTorrents main domain is up for sale. According to their report, the domains that were taken by the U.S. are kickasstorrents.com, katstatic.com, thekat.tv, and kickass.to.
KickassTorrents.com has not only been seized, but it also displays the well-known Homeland Security/Department of Justice seizure banner. Thekat.tv shares the same destiny as the previously mentioned site. Katstatic.com was utilized because of some of the technical aspects of the site. However, it is also in the hands of the U.S. government. All of these three domains were under the control of the US-based Verisign registry. This possibly explains why these sites were shut down so rapidly. Other KickassTorrents domains are taking longer to process, but apparently, they still work.
However, two of the main domains, kat.cr and kickass.cr, have not been seized yet. They are not available, but not redirecting to a seizure banner either. However, they are now up for sale.
The WHOIS Records shows that Kickass.cr is up for sale. Those who are interested in purchasing the domain will be taken to SEDO marketplace. The minimum bid currently is $230. The Costa Rican domain registry that is in control of the two main domains of Kickass Torrents are keeping their lips sealed and are not willing to share any information.
We are not quite sure who would want to buy the website now. But, considering the cheap price, we believe there will be many potential buyers. But, since the U.S. government is trying to put an end to illegal downloads, we also believe that they will do their best to prevent the sale from happening.
