A lot of supporters for Artem Vaulin, the founder of Kickass Torrent (or KAT), are filing for a petition to release and are hoping that the site will be brought back into commission. However, it seems that it might be unlikely at the moment.
It seems that the US Government has been really hard-pressed in cracking down these online piracy sites. Vaulin, owner and operator of Kickass Torrent, was arrested in July after US authorities found and detained him in Poland with the help of Apple, Facebook, and CoinBase. Kickass Torrent, the domain site, was shut down ever since and recent reports say that other torrent sites, The Pirate Bay and ExtraTorrent, have been pressured to follow suit with the crackdown procedures.
ISPs in Sweden are already allegedly blocking The Pirate Bay, along with being banned by several major browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Opera.
ExtraTorrent, on the other hand, suffers the loss of three major mirror sites, according to reports made by YIBADA. Rights holders are already rallying to search and stop these torrenting sites already.
Other sites like Torrent Freak are already experiencing being purged in countries such as France and Ukraine. Media outlets claim that this is a start of something, warning other similar sites to cease crossing copyright laws and their pirating habits.
While a number of similar sites have been under the crackdown pressure, there still seems to be a widespread support for Artem Vaulin and his petition to be released. However, chances for KAT to be re-commissioned and to continue operation are grim with the US authorities' active pursuit against the pirate sites.
Previous reports from TorrentFreak claim that the indictment of Vaulin is fatally flawed, according to his legal team. They stated that streaming is not considered a felony under US law. In turn, they further added that the act of sharing non-copyrighted torrent file should be defined as a crime. Thus, the first persecution shouldn't have been taken out in the first place.
As a response, US Attorney Zachary Fordon responded that Kickass Torrent is considered a torrent site, crossing copyright laws, and was compared to flea markets that make a living from infringing.
