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World’s biggest piracy website, KickassTorrents, went offline as the owner Vaulin has been arrested in Poland and charged for copyright infringement in the US. The owner is accused of distributing over $1 billion worth of illegally copied films, music and other content.
30 years old Artem Vaulin from Ukraine is the owner of the world’s biggest piracy website “Kickass Torrents” is under arrest for copyright infringement, money laundering and other charges.
Kickass Torrent was more popular than The Pirate Bay. It has been receiving more than 50 million unique visits per month.
“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 can not hide from justice” added General Caldwell.
A federal court in Chicago ordered the seizure of one bank account and seven domain names associated with the piracy website ‘KAT‘.
According to the complaint, KickassTorrents has consistently made the movies that were still running in theaters available for downloading and displayed ads throughout its website. KAT’s estimated net worth is more than $54 million, with estimated annual advertising revenue in the range of $12.5 to $22.3 million.
“Copyright infringement exacts a large troll, a very human one, on the artists and businesses whose livelihood hinges on their creative inventions,” said US Attorney Fardon. “Vaulin allegedly used the Internet to cause enormous harm to those artists.”
Vaulin has relied on his network of servers located around the world and has moved its website’s domains several times after getting banned by Britain, Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Malaysia, and Denmark cybercrime police.
If you’re a KickassTorrents user, don’t expect KickassTorrents to come back online as it has been banned permanently and the owner is under arrest.
