Alleged founder of world’s largest BitTorrent distribution site arrested

Generally hits good enough on all categories.

of course torrents still win in content. Especially newer movies.

I want to watch a newer movie.

Is it on netflix/hulu/hbo/prime? Nope

Is it on AIV paid? Yes.

How much? 20 dollars.

That's too much for a movie I probably will only watch once. Any other options? At best a rental on AIV for a few bucks. That's pretty borderline. I'd pay that to see a movie I really want to see, but for one I'm taking a risk on it's a bit much.

I'd pay more for Netflix if it meant they get those new movies quicker. People seem to lose their shit when they announce a 1 dollar price increase though. Ridiculous, but there you go.

vs torrents I can just go into a webapp and pick out a movie. It gets downloaded and organized for me. I can watch it on my PC, my TV, via streaming, copy it to my iPad. Whatever. Easy, reasonably quick, free. Downside is it's illegal and immoral. I avoid pirating any content that I can easily access (I have some older shows that never made it past DVD, and are hard to find in general), because there really is no justification. When I was a student and content was mostly in expensive blu rays, I absolutely pirated.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/07/kickasstorrents-a...

Somewhat more/complementary details seem to be available on: https://torrentfreak.com/feds-seize-kickasstorrents-domains-... — e.g. regarding methods:

[...] The complaint further reveals that the feds posed as an advertiser, which revealed a bank account associated with the site.

It also shows that Apple handed over personal details of Vaulin after the investigator cross-referenced an IP-address used for an iTunes transaction with an IP-address that was used to login to KAT’s Facebook account. [...]

Some aspects which seem interesting to me, from what is reported:

• that apparently KAT owner tried to shield off DMCA takedown requests (which I'd see as trying to affirm being legal);

• that according to the articles he seems to not have used Tor (or fumbled in it).

(Assuming no parallel construction and that he's actually the guy, etc. etc.)

EDIT: I couldn't really find any Polish sources — suppose because it's middle of the night here... (the single article — http://www.dobreprogramy.pl/Zalozyciel-Kickass-Torrents-zatr... — seems to be written based on the above English-language ones)

I think he opened himself to US law by hosting the servers at one point in the US. Regardless, it is rather fascinating that his first visit to the US could potentially be from extradition.

I'd say where the analog breaks down is the media companies aren't exactly extorting the people, nor price gouging.