[Courtesy of KickassTorrents]
KickassTorrents, the world's largest torrent sharing website, went offline after its alleged owner was arrested and stopped its service that let users download or share the latest music, movies, games, and other files.
Artem Vaulin, a 30-year-old Ukrainian pirate king arrested in Poland, is thought to be the man behind the website's operation. The US government has requested his extradition.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the US District Court in Chicago, Vaulin was charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of criminal copyright infringement.
KickassTorrents had been the center of online piracy since its founding in 2008 and leaked many films and music. The US court estimated the value of the site's copyrighted material is equivalent to one billion US dollars. The site also had one of the Internet's largest archive of pornography.
Before its shutdown, KickassTorrents was the 69th most frequently visited website with about 50 million visitors a month. Currently, some people are posting inquiries about the lost torrent site or an alternative on online communities.
Some experts speculate shutting down the torrent site will not slow down online piracy. "Online pirate sites have come and gone over the history of the internet," said Kim Kyo-suk, an online trend analyst and pop-culture expert. "But they never went away. You kill one off today, and tomorrow there will be two more."
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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