KickassTorrents

KickassTorrents
Web address kickass.to
Type of site
 Torrent index, magnet links provider
Registration Free
Available in 30 languages, primarily English
Users Over 1M per day (2015)
Launched 2008
Alexa rank
 Increase 91 (March 2015)[1]
Current status Online

KickassTorrents (sometimes abbreviated KAT) is a website, founded in 2008, that provides torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. As of November 2014, KAT became the most visited torrent directory in the world according to the site's Alexa ranking.[2]

Blocking and censorship

KickassTorrents says that it complies with the DMCA and it removes infringing torrents reported by content owners.[3]

On 21 April 2011, KickassTorrents moved to the new domain name kat.ph after a series of domain name seizures by the United States Department of Justice against Demonoid and Torrentz.[4] The site later moved to several different domains, which the operators plan to do every six months, including ka.tt, kickass.to, kickass.so, kickasstorrents.im and kat.cr.[5]

On 28 February 2013, Internet service providers (ISPs) in the United Kingdom were ordered by the High Court in London to block access to KickassTorrents, along with two other torrent sites. Judge Richard Arnold ruled that the site's design contributed to copyright infringement.[6][7] On 14 June 2013, the domain name was changed to kickass.to as a part of global maintenance.[8]

On 23 June 2013, KAT was delisted from Google at the request of the MPAA.[9] In late August 2013, KAT was blocked by Belgian ISPs.[10] In January 2014, several Irish ISPs started blocking KAT.[11] In February 2014, Twitter started blocking links to KAT, however on 28 February 2014, KAT was unblocked on Twitter.[12] In June 2014, KAT was blocked by Malaysian government as the access to that particular site has been denied under Section 263(2) Communications And Multimedia Act 1998 as it violates the Copyright Act 1987.

In December 2014, the site moved to the Somali domain kickass.so. Reports stated that it was moved as a result of site's regular domain change.[13][14] On 9 February 2015, kickass.so was listed as "banned" on Whois, causing the site to go offline. Later that day, the site reverted to its former domain name kickass.to.[15]

On 14 February 2015, it was found that messages mentioning "kickass.to" were blocked on Steam chat, though "kickass.so" and other popular torrent websites were not blocked, only flagged as "potentially malicious".[16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "kickass.to Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
  2. ↑ Alexa Top 500 Global Sites. Retrieved November 14, 2014
  3. ↑ KAT DMCA
  4. ↑ Ernesto (2011-04-22). "KickassTorrents Moves to Kat.ph". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
  5. ↑ KickassTorrents Moves to Isle of Man Domain Name. TorrentFreak. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  6. ↑ O'Carroll, Lisa (28 February 2013). "Online piracy: ISPs ordered to block access to three file-sharing websites". London: The Guardian. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
  7. ↑ EMI Records Limited, Infectious Limited, Liberation Music Pty Limited, Polydor Limited, Simco Limited, Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited, Universal Music Operations Limited, Virgin Records Limited, Warner Music UK Limited, Weainternational Inc v British Sky Broadcasting Limited, British Telecommunications Plc, Everything Everywhere Limited, TalktalkTelecom Group Plc, Telefónica UK Limited, Virgin Media Limited [2013] EWHC 379 (Ch) (28 February 2013), High Court (England and Wales)
  8. ↑ "Moving to Kickass.To - Blog - KickassTorrents". Kickass.to. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
  9. ↑ "MPAA Kicks KickassTorrents Off Google With ‘Precision’ Takedown". TorrentFreak. Retrieved June 24, 2013.
  10. ↑ "Belgische providers blokkeren meer torrentsites" (in Dutch).
  11. ↑ "Irish Internet Providers Roll Out KickassTorrents Blockade". TorrentFreak. 19 January 2014. Retrieved 19 January 2014.
  12. ↑ "Twitter Blocks Kickass.to Links, Says They're Unsafe". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  13. ↑ "KickassTorrent Moves Domain to Somalia". Softpedia News. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  14. ↑ "KickassTorrents Moves to Kickass.so Domain Name". TorrentFreak. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  15. ↑ Ernesto (February 9, 2015). "Kickass Torrents taken down by domain name seizure". TorrentFreak. Retrieved February 9, 2015.
  16. ↑ Ernesto (February 14, 2015). "Steam Censors Kickass.to Mentions in Chat Client". TorrentFreak. Retrieved February 25, 2015.

External links