Kickass Torrents shutdown: Alleged owner's lawyers fight for client's release, Torrentz dies after 13 years

Maria Bernadette Castro Tuesday, August 09, 2016

A man types on a computer keyboard. | Reuters/Kacper Pempel

The lawyers of alleged Kickass Torrents owner Artem Vaulin are asking the U.S. Department of Justice to drop the charges and release their client out of prison.

Vaulin was put behind bars after he was seized by authorities last July for criminal copyright infringement and money laundering, which his legal team deems baseless in a letter they sent to the defense team.

"This alleged criminal copyright case arises out of an erroneous theory of criminal copyright law advanced by the United States that attempts to hold Artem Vaulin criminally liable for the alleged infringing acts of KAT's search engine users," they wrote.

"Defendants cannot be held criminally responsible for what users do after they leave the KAT search engine behind. The Copyright Act does not criminalize secondary copyright infringement," they added.

Vaulin's lawyers also claim that there is lack of "specific examples" pointing to their client infringing downloads and in light of this, they urged the Department of Justice to release the alleged Kickass Torrents owner.

Along with Vaulin's arrest last month, Kickass Torrents itself was shut down. Mirrors and copies quickly emerged, but the original torrent site was erased from existence.

Just a couple of weeks after this takedown, torrenting giant Torrentz.eu was also folded down by license holders and production companies in their continued fight to stop piracy.

Torrentz.eu went live in 2003. It existed just weeks before Pirate Bay was born and is deemed the world's largest torrent site. The departure of the site was done without warning and explanation.

The search function was removed while logging in was not possible. The shutdown was made official by the operators, who posted a message on the site that reads, "Torrentz will always love you. Farewell."

Torrentz operators refused to comment on the shutdown. However, it is clear as day that one of the oldest torrent hubs on the internet is indeed no more.