Kickass Torrents' KAT.ph Domain Seized By Philippine Authorities 122
hypnosec writes "Kickass Torrents hasn't been accessible since sometime yesterday, and now it has been confirmed that the domain name of the torrent website has been seized by Philippine authorities. Local record labels and the Philippine Association of the Recording Industry said that the torrent site was doing 'irreparable damages' to the music industry and following a formal complaint the authorities resorted to seizure of the main domain name. The site hasn't given up, and is operating as usual under a new domain name. The government of the Philippines has confirmed that the domain name has been seized based on formal complaints and copyright grounds."
Re:You know (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently, since you couldn't be bothered to do it either.
http://kickass.to
New Domain (Score:5, Informative)
http://kickass.to/ [kickass.to]
No https yet.
Re:You know (Score:5, Informative)
Re:New Domain (Score:5, Informative)
For anyone who just want the encryption https provides, you can enter https manually and accept the "wrong domain" warning; I've done so, and confirmed that the kay.ph certificate is compatible.
KAT has been pretty diligent about their certs, so they should have one for .to soon.
Re:You know (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not making a legal defense. I'm saying that the law itself is bad, and strictly speaking, it doesn't pass a strict Constitutional muster. The law as it stands is clearly following a different philosophy than the only justified one (public benefit), so it should not be respected, and if anything, should be actively defied. Believe it or not, the law can be wrong, and often is. Also, your broken latin phrase doesn't apply, since the law is not harsh, but injust. It is often grossly disproportionate to the extent that there have been Constitutional challenges to statutory damages, and the harshness of the law is a major concern, but the bigger flaw is that it's based in medieval economics, and has no place in the modern world. The relevant terms are themselves quite telling. 'Copyright' originated from the right to copy, back when it conveyed a positive right to make copies, because it was part of a censorship regime in which proliferation of unsanctioned knowledge was forbidden. If you are ignorant on the matter, look up the Stationer's Company. 'Royalties' are another big hint that the system is antiquated, although a number of prominent organizations calling themselves 'guilds' doesn't help the matter much.
Sweat of the brow arguments are legally invalid in regards to copyright law, per Feist v. Rural. And ethically, sharing information is generally a good thing, with only a few exceptions. I do no oppose supporting the arts, and I likely have done more towards that end than you have.
You've also thrown out the term 'freeloading,' yet another sign of an incompetent copyright proponent. Are you TRYING to fill up your bingo card on that? I would direct you to read Mark Lemly's paper [ssrn.com] on the subject.
Re:You know (Score:5, Informative)
1560 hits to, presumably, mostly illegal torrent files, as found by Google and directly linked to the .torrent file:
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=rick%20astley%20filetype%3Atorrent [google.com]
Big nasty illegal downloading site: 61 hits, presumably a small subset of what Google finds.
http://kickass.to/usearch/rick%20astley/ [kickass.to]
Neither site hosts the actual .torrent files.
Please explain why one should be considered illegal and the other not?
Re:You know (Score:4, Informative)
"What? Someone linked to the site directly above. /. staff do have the ability to remove posts and as such are every bit as liable for links in the comments as for links in the summary."
No, they aren't. This reflects ignorance of how the law in the US actually works. (No insult intended. A great many people don't know how it works.)
First, the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA -- the only good provisions in the DMCA -- free them from liability from any content uploaded by their users... as long as they don't mess with that content.
Another important legal precedent says that if they DO mess with that content, including editing, censoring, or even top-down moderation, then they DO become liable for that content. Because then they are controlling that content, and if they control it they become liable for it. (Question: if you remove one "illegal" post but not another, why would you NOT be responsible for leaving that other post up? The law says you are. You made a choice.)
There is an exception: if a DMCA take-down request comes from an outside party, then they may be obligated to take down that post. That's one of the many BAD provisions of the DMCA, because it imposes a sort of "prior restraint": forcing people to act before there is any proof or court determination of illegal conduct.
So the upshot is: except for stupid parts of the DMCA (that is to say, most of it), they are far better off just leaving content alone, and not trying to censor it. They stand a much lower chance of running into legal difficulties.