Feds Seize KickassTorrents Domains and Arrest Owner In Poland (arstechnica.com) 302
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Federal authorities announced on Wednesday the arrest of the alleged mastermind of KickassTorrents (KAT), the world's largest BitTorrent distribution site. As of this writing, the site is still up. Prosecutors have formally charged Artem Vaulin, 30, of Ukraine, with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. Like The Pirate Bay, KAT does not host individual infringing files but rather provides links to .torrent and .magnet files so that users can download unauthorized copies of TV shows, movies, and more from various BitTorrent users. According to a Department of Justice press release sent to Ars Technica, Vaulin was arrested on Wednesday in Poland. The DOJ will shortly seek his extradition to the United States. "Vaulin is charged with running today's most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials," Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in the statement. "In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits. His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice." KickassTorrents added a dark web address last month to make it easier for users to bypass blockades installed by ISPs.
prosecuted for HTML (Score:5, Insightful)
So if I Google kickass torrents and Google returns a link to their site, shouldn't Google be prosecuted as an accessory?
See how fucking stupid these charges are?
I guess the DOJ needs something to distract everyone from the whole letting Clinton commit treason thing.
Prosecuted for posting about searching for torrent (Score:5, Funny)
So if I Google kickass torrents and Google returns a link to their site, shouldn't Google be prosecuted as an accessory?
If you post to /. about the idea of using Google to search for Kickass Torrents, shouldn't you and /. both be prosecuted as accessories?
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If you post to /. about the idea of using Google to search for Kickass Torrents, shouldn't you and /. both be prosecuted as accessories?
If you quote a post about the idea of using Google search for Kickass Torrents shouldn't you be prosecuted?
Re: Prosecuted for posting about searching for tor (Score:2, Funny)
just reading this makes us all guilty
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And that's what they want. Now they can do what ever they want without a warrant, because we're all criminals....
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Treason? (Score:5, Informative)
apparently, you have no idea what how treason is defined by the US Constitution. let me help...
US Constitution, Article 3, Section 3
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."
Re:Treason? (Score:4, Interesting)
apparently, you have no idea what how treason is defined by the US Constitution.
Of course, that document was written by a bunch of guys who had just willingly committed treason, justified or not, against their former country and king ('a man do levy war against the king in his realm') by so they should know exactly what they were talking about.
Re: Treason? (Score:2)
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Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Hilary hired Trump to be the distraction.
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Are you deacon us around?
Re:prosecuted for HTML (Score:4, Funny)
Trump is a loose canon.
Are you sure he's not a loose Nikon?
Some thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)
We just saw an article explaining how China had just outlawed ad-blockers.
Does this mean China can accuse the maker of ad-blocking software with a major crime, and require that person to be extradited to China for trial?
Re: Some thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
For trial? Hahahahaha
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better to punch the cop in the face and do the time in club fed vs china but china still has death penalty on books for hacking so you can fight it on that alone.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
We just saw an article explaining how China had just outlawed ad-blockers.
Does this mean China can accuse the maker of ad-blocking software with a major crime, and require that person to be extradited to China for trial?
Only if he's arrested in another country where ad blockers are illegal. Presumably aiding and abetting copyright infringement is illegal in Poland as well as in the United States.
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So why can't they arrest the scam callers impersonating the IRS and demanding money? Fraud is illegal in most countries.
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So why can't they arrest the scam callers impersonating the IRS and demanding money? Fraud is illegal in most countries.
Telcos in those special countries where all the fraud comes from are complicit, they make it possible for people to do that without reporting their identities.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)
It's hard to extradite someone from somewhere what they have done it not a crime
That's probably why the DOJ is slapping on "conspiracy to commit money laundering" because a lot of countries have treaties to combat money laundering.
They won't have to argue Artem has committed a crime that Poland recognises in relation to copyright infringement.
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Ennetcom springs to mind, the Dutch encrypted phone the Dutch police raided to shut it down. That had a 'money-laundering' charge tacked onto it. But the Dutch press reported that the money-laundering was because criminals were reselling the phones to other criminals, allegedly to clean their drug money. Except how can it be cleaned if they're selling to other criminals? The other criminals money must also be tainted too! It made batshit sense.
The core two complaints: a fake money laundering charge (which w
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Pool of experts? Like politicians? Or reknown scientists? Or the bunch of 'experts' that keep popping on TV explaining how we should understand what's happening?
How about a panel of Nobel Peace Prize winners like Obama, Arafat, Rabin?
Do elaborate, please.
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I've lost track of all the Julian Assange articles on slashdot and have got no idea how you managed to forget all of them.
However extradition is still hard, especially from Poland where a very high profile convicted pedophile rapist has been evading US justice for decades.
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"Dual criminality" used to be pretty important ... of course, that got thrown out the window in the EU when they introduced the EAW (European Arrest Warrant).
Since its introduction, abuses of the EAW have been well documented. Poland and Greece have been using them as means of simply extorting money from tourists. e.g. You claim you didn't steal that five euro towel when you visited their country, but the staff swore the towel was missing. A criminal charge was lodged, and an EAW granted. You can eith
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Warning (Score:5, Insightful)
Warning. Last time the Feds seized a site (some child porn site on TOR) they kept hosting it themselves for a month with malware on it. Accessing KAT right now would be foolish.
Re:Warning (Score:4, Insightful)
Warning. Last time the Feds seized a site (some child porn site on TOR)
The irony here is they can extradite someone who links to things but not an actual child rapist such as Roman Polanski who is evading US justice in Poland. That's a pretty huge double standard considering the "think of the children" excuse used for internet crackdowns.
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The irony here is they can extradite someone who links to things but not an actual child rapist such as Roman Polanski who is evading US justice in Poland.
Time for a Roman Polandski child rapist meme. Bonus points if you can work a pun about "poles" in
The Polanski case (Score:2)
The irony here is they can extradite someone who links to things but not an actual child rapist such as Roman Polanski who is evading US justice in Poland. That's a pretty huge double standard considering the "think of the children" excuse used for internet crackdowns.
You obviously don't understand in reality how the US government works in some cases, so I'm gong to explain it to you. First of all, the US actually did submit papers to Poland requesting that Polanski be extradited. The Polish government rejected them. However, I'm pretty sure that Polanski feared that the Polish government might not always reject such requests, so apparently he's now back in France. French law prevents his extradition.
What you also need to know is that US government will never, e
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Just a nit - there's a difference between a civil case and a criminal case. It's nice that Polanski's victim has forgiven him - that means he doesn't have to face a civil case. But that doesn't absolve him from criminal liability. Statutory rape (and, if I remember the case correctly it was actually just plain "rape" - big difference for those of you who are scratching your heads) is a crime and is considered an offense against everybody, hence the criminal aspect of it.
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And also because she was violently raped.
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Do you think this torrent guy is going to be given that same "punishment" or do you think he is going to be extradited from Poland and do time in the USA if found guilty?
Consider that and you will get my point.
In this situation copyright violation is being taken far more seriously than a fugitive found guilty of rape. One is being extradited from Poland but not the other.
Re:Warning (Score:4, Funny)
This is KAT we're talking about. Of course there's malware on it.
Don't surf the internet without a condom. Whether you invite the FBI over for a threesome is irrelevant.
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" for a month with malware on it. Accessing KAT right now would be foolish."
Only if you are ignorant enough to allow your browser to execute foreign processes blindly or grant them permissions. As far as any swarm being infected, same deal, running unknown executables / scripts or "installers" without a sandbox is just plain stupid.
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As if anyone really has control over what their browser does... All you can do is turn off javascript and flash and hope your browser isn't attacked via any of the other many security vulnerabilities left over.
Unless you are running your actual browser in a sandboxed VM, you are still at the mercy of the ability of a team of humans to not make any mistakes.
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Justice? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Vaulin is charged with running today's most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials," Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in the statement. "In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits. His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice."
- is this what passes for 'justice' today?
I guess he, who has the most guns defines what justice is. Justice is the opposite of what this Orwellian prick says. Justice is in non initiation of violence by any government. Justice is in equal treatment of individuals by law regardless of their circumstances. Using government oppression to enforce copyright has nothing to do with justice.
Government may have a function, that function being enforcing contract law and dealing with fraud. That is all that any government should ever have any power to do. Everything else is oppression, not justice.
Re:Justice? (Score:5, Insightful)
"...His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice."
While ransomware distributors prey on us at will, because the priority is on protecting Hollywood from copyright violators.
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Once again, protecting Hollywood.
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This is a lot less obvious case then many people like it to be. Girl was pimped by her mother to extort money from Polanski. She lied to him about her age and then they were supposed to settle for a lot of money. Unfortunately (for both mother and Polanski) judge wanted to gain some political fame, so he blocked the settlement. Mother and girl ended up with no money, Polanski ended up being fugitive.
Yes, Polanski at that time certainly had a taste for girls which were on the edge of being legal age. But it
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Very odd to see someone here as an apologist for a convicted pedophile rapist, perhaps that "Men's Rights" stuff is far more toxic than I imagined.
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Can you link to the information about injuries? Because, at least from wikipedia, Samantha Gailey Geimer stated "he had sex with me. He wasn’t hurting me and he wasn’t forceful or mean or anything like that..."
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Nobody says it was not a crime. I was trying to say that:
- it is lot more complex situation than just crying 'child rapist' and putting him in same box as all similar criminals
- that mother whoring her underage daughter in hope of blackmailing and earning millions should got some flak as well, but she is not, as she is not from 'bad Hollywood establishment'
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Is that really how you want to say it?
You can backtrack if you didn't really mean that, but that is how you have put it so far.
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Yes I get it - he's a Hollywood aristocrat and she's just common muck whored out by her mother. George Washington fought hard to stop that sort of attitude but here you are as if it never happened. The Hollywood PR machine said the little girl liked it but the transcript of the trial said she was injured and that's why it came to the attention of the police in the first place.
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No, I think that's pretty much the definition of rape, specifically statutory rape.
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No, I think that's pretty much the definition of rape, specifically statutory rape.
You are right - sex with anybody below age of consent is rape by definition, even if that person is willing, because she or he is not legally allowed to 'give consent'.
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Actually, after doublechecking, it is more complicated - it differs from country to country. In US, you are right. In Poland (where the extradiction was being considered), it is not a 'rape', it is ''sexual intercourse with minor', which has separate penalties from rape and one does not imply the other. For people who might be interested (I hope nobody _really_ does), here are the penalties:
- for sexual intercourse with minor: 2-12 years in prison
- for sexual intercourse with close relative: 3months-5years
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There are many books on this case. Even if all the very nasty rumors are discounted the stuff that came out in court made it very clear.
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Girl was pimped by her mother to extort money from Polanski.
So her mother's a scumbag too. But dude, she was 13. Just because her mother was complicit doesn't make Polanski any less of a kiddie fiddler.
Yes, Polanski at that time certainly had a taste for girls which were on the edge of being legal age.
13 is not on the edge of being legal. Dude's a kiddie fiddler.
But it was very far from being 'rape', it was a prostitution+blackmail arranged by girl's mother.
How the hell is it not rape just because her mothe
Re: Justice? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that most of the malware out there comes from countries like Russia that dont have an extradition treaty with the US, that have one but where the treaty doesn't allow extradition of malware authors or that are powerful enough that the US cant make them bend over in the way they can for smaller countries like Poland.
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Those countries that don't accept "protection" by the US are quickly confronted with a "regime change". Unless they have nuclear weapons and delivery systems of course, that's why North Korea is developing both now.
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- is this what passes for 'justice' today?
Prosecutors and police enforcing the laws passed by your democratically elected representatives? Yes, I should hope so.
Government may have a function, that function being enforcing contract law and dealing with fraud. That is all that any government should ever have any power to do. Everything else is oppression, not justice.
That's democracy for you. Sometimes the 51% passes laws that the 49% doesn't like. I'm sorry you don't like it.
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What's so howly about a contract then? It's just a piece of paper anyway.
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I promise to supply to johanw (1001493) , on the 1st of September, 200 wolves in return for the sum of ...
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Sure, it is the scale that changes the equation because it creates a monopoly on violence
Are you suggesting we allow a competitive market for violence? Declare open source violence? We have that in the form of Mobs, Gangs, and the occasional serial killer. Yea lets just open the gates of violence to include people other than what the majority vote for * to keep that very thing from happening*
and it is seen as 'legitimate' just because some form of a government is initiating it.
Most often 'some form of government' was chosen by the majority to be found suitable by the populace. IF the populace has control of the vote.
My position is easy to understand if you realize that there is something called voluntarism. Voluntary participation is the defining metric. Using group violence to force participation and of-course the inherit taxation that comes with such participation is the key difference between a government and a private activity.
Voluntarism that is so rare that people that finally do go and a
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And yet you want the government to enforce contracts. Entering contracts is no more voluntary than obeying someone with a knife on your neck: sure, you can opt out, but then you die, either by having your throat cut or through starvation.
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Please explain what makes some land your property? Because you say so? Why should anyone else care about that? Because you'll kill them if they don't?
So basically, whoever has the most resources can hire the largest private army to capture - excuse me, "defend his claim to" - more? Because, in the absence of a government, what's stopping
Pointless appeasement still pointless (Score:2)
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*Hint*
Laws only affect the lawful.
Update (Score:4, Informative)
As of this writing, KAT is down, both through conventional DNS and through their onion address.
Re:Update (Score:5, Informative)
The main sites are down, but that doesn't surprise me, as they often have capacity problems and can be hard to reach for several hours, nearly every day.
Still reachable domains are;
- http://kickasstorrents.ee/ [kickasstorrents.ee]
- http://kickasstorrentsan.com/ [kickasstorrentsan.com]
- http://kickasstorrents.cr/ [kickasstorrents.cr]
- http://kickass-torrents.to/ [kickass-torrents.to]
And since I'm here, a few alternatives:
- https://eztv.ag/showlist/name/ [eztv.ag]
- https://thepiratebay.org/ [thepiratebay.org]
- https://isohunt.to/torrents/ [isohunt.to]
Re:Update (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty sure eztv was compromised and none of 'eztv' domains are real. Same goes for all those supposedly KAT domains you've listed. Why are you linking to fake copies of the sites?
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None of the KAT domains seem to be working properly, like the backend database isn't reachable. All they have is some cached data.
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...or just torrentz.eu
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What's to say this press release wasn't published for a full year after the domains were seized?
Fed:
- Captures Domains
- Waits a year while hosting site.
- Publishes press release
- Statute of limitations has not expired.
- Begin arrests.
Re:Update (Score:4, Insightful)
Arrests for what?
For looking at a page that offers magnet links that you might or might not access?
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Exactly. Even downloading the torrents isn't copy infringement. There has to be an element of transfer for anything to happen.
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You all may well be correct, but in America it's not who's right or wrong but who can afford the lawyers to prove their point.
He who has the biggest lawyer wins.
Torrent Sites? (Score:5, Funny)
People still use those? Google is still the fastest and best:
filetype:torrent [your query]
Re:Torrent Sites? (Score:5, Informative)
filetype:magnet is even better, as Google usually supplies an actual working magnet URL that you can use to directly start your download. Exactly the same as Kickass Torrents.
Crowd sourced verification (Score:5, Insightful)
KAT was never about finding torrents, as you say, it isn't hard by various methods. The real value of KAT was the community. The KAT community would comment and rate torrents. As you're probably aware, there are a lot of bad torrents, and simply fake ones generated by the various copyright associations. The only thing KAT really did was enable a large group of people to crowd source the verification of torrents enabling people to find good ones. Otherwise yes you can most easily find a "torrent" you are looking for, but is it any good, or is it a fake.
However, none of this has anything to do with technology, so any site can do it, it just helps to be a popular one (i.e. a larger community to manually verify torrents). Should KAT go away, people will just move to a different one, and things continue as before. There will likely be some disruption, but it will only really be a temporary win for the copyright associations. They of course will simply use this is justification of their existence to continue to leech money from the various media industries (hence the "BILLION" dollar figure which is complete BS, as the simplistic example goes the car thief wasn't going to buy the car if he hadn't stolen it)... Rinse, repeat, etc...
Tails 1.4.1 (Score:2, Interesting)
They did it because it hosted the only version of uncompromised Tails.
There are many other torrent sites. Stupid fuckers. As you take away, your shit is taken away harder.
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https://www.sendspace.com/file/w35ddl
Here is the actual real sig and real sha and real torrent that had been hosted on kat.cr. It is in that 7z. Unzip it with peazip or whatever you want. That torrent was placed on kat.cr by some place called TNTVILLAGE or something like that. It is a very high traffic forum I think it was in Spanish. The .iso of Tails is multilanguage. Nothing different from the original. It's sig and sha matched the ones from the originally downloaded one I have from when 1.4.1 was
Poland? (Score:2)
ROFL (Score:5, Insightful)
What does justice have to do with it?
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This was stated by 'Department of Justice'. As in, 'department owned by Justice'. Justice Hollywood, daughter of Torquemada McCarthy, son of Prohibition Rush, daughter of Saint Methody. Justice Hollywood asked for him to be caught and he was caught, so she is very much involved.
My favorite part of the DOJ preso release (Score:2)
We are shameful (Score:5, Insightful)
"His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice."
No, what his arrest demonstrates is how low we have become allowing Hollywood to buy laws, how little understanding judges and juries have of technology, and how weak Poland is permitting us to fuck with a sovereign citizen.
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If you think that Poland bowed down before USA in this case, you are mistaken. They happily assisted. Poland has been sucking American dick for decades. Even though they are, for some reason, a member of the EU, they are far more closely allied to the US.
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Probably because the US did far more to help Poland when it was a soviet satellite state then their 'neighbors' in the rest of Europe did.
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This is not what I have questioned. My question was, WTF does Poland do in the EU in first place?
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This is not what I have questioned. My question was, WTF does Poland do in the EU in first place?
That's not what you asked though. What do you think any country in the EU does? Exploit the market, and create business opportunities. In Poland's case, it's mainly for protection against Russia.
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What part of "Even though they are, for some reason, a member of the EU" is so difficult to understand?
Poland is already a NATO member, they should have stayed out of the EU. They don't belong in the EU. They have voted for an anti-EU government for several times.
Whew! (Score:4, Funny)
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But just think what resources will now be available to the Feds with the tax revenue coming in because the copyright holders will be getting their $1B a year that was being stolen because of KAT. /s
He made millions (Score:2, Insightful)
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And yet only 2 days ago Slashdot ran an article from a judge declaring that torrents themselves are not copyright infringement.
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His fatal mistake (Score:3)
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Or if he was presidential candidate. Especially one who was secretary of state, and once married to the president.
How interesting! (Score:2)
I wasn't aware the DOJ had jurisdiction in Poland.
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That mostly should not have existed in the first place.