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Possibly one of the most impactful online piracy cases ever began in earnest this week, with the legal representatives of alleged owner of KickassTorrents, Artem Vaulin, facing off against the U.S. government over four federal indictments. His lead lawyer, Ira Rothken, best known for defending Kim Dotcom, argued that torrents weren't really copyright protected content, so could not be used as the basis for copyright charges.
Vaulin currently resides in Poland, where he was arrested and is awaiting his extradition trial. He was picked up by the authorities in mid-2016, after allegedly operating KickassTorrents for eight years. If he is sent to the U.S. to face legal action, he could be charged with copyright infringement, money laundering and tax evasion, with KickassTorrents alleged to have brought in upwards of $12 million a year in advertising.
Arguing torrents aren't piracy is a difficult tack to take
Looking to head that off at the pass, Rothken and his legal team have made the claim that piracy via torrents, isn't really piracy:
“We believe that the indictment against Artem Vaulin in the KAT torrent files case is defective and should be dismissed. Torrent files are not content files. The reproduction and distribution of torrent files are not a crime,””Rothken said in a chat with TorrentFreak, about what he told the courts this week.
If someone were to use those files to infringe upon copyright after downloading them, that was not KAT's responsibility, Rothken argued. He also highlighted how the U.S. indictment of Vaulin, did not cite any particular cases of copyright infringement. Instead of a hotbed of piracy, as the prosecution maintains, Rothken described KAT as more of a search engine, like Google.
The prosecution called these claims nonsense, stating that Google does not make its business from uploading copyright protected content. They also urged the judge to not rule on the indictments until Vaulin's extradition trial had taken place and suggested that if Vaulin wanted to speed up the matter, he should voluntarily come to the U.S..
After statements from both legal representatives, the Illinois District Court judge will now rule on whether to proceed with the indictments, or dismiss them outright, as requested by Rothken.
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KitGuru Says: Although unlikely, if Rothken was able to receive a favourable ruling on this case based on the idea that torrents weren't really copyright infringement, that could change the landscape of piracy court cases dramatically.
Strictly speaking, I agree, a torrent file is just directions on where to get things, it isn’t itself illegal. It’s like getting a piece of paper with directions on where to drive to buy bombs – that piece of paper wouldn’t be illegal either, no? :p
isn’t it funny that instead of going after the marketing companies that are posting their adverts on KAT and making money hand over fist on torrents they instead focus purely on the one person running the website? another instance of the law going the easy way instead of doing its actual job; going after the individual instead of going after the system that will keep spawning them.
Has anyone actually googled “torrents”… Google provide us with the results of our search!! my point is that google are 3rd party to the advert of advertising . sharing is not illegal , it is the money making of it that is!
That depends on jurisdiction. In the US, that constitutes intent and you can get hit pretty hard unless you have “valid reason”–but the ATF is also really, really nitpicky about certain kinds of things like that.
If, say, I gave my shop diagrams to a friend that wasn’t a certified armorer, they could nail him for intent to manufacture controlled weapons (which in their eyes constitutes anything down to a potato gun) and give him up to five years… for a piece of paper.
I’m sure distant relatives on my mother’s side back in Ireland would probably get picked up for intent if they had a piece of paper with the “where to buy bombs” deal, too.
The moral of the story is that the law is really absurdly open to interpretation, and the winner is -generally- going to be the side with the badge when it comes to that kind of thing.
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“stating that Google does not make its business from uploading copyright protected content”
You go to KAT, you search, you find a torrent, you download copyrighted content from a third party.
You go to Google, you search, you find a site, you download copyrighted content from a third party.
Looks the same to me.
Hit reply on the wrong comment, or…?
Not sure how that’s relevant to my response to the thread’s OP at all.
He made money off it. He’s dead.
But we all know Google is to big to bring down.
The problem with the argument of the defense is simply that the system is set up to protect those with power and money, often over logic and morality.
Torrents were never copyrighted or copyrightable. The whole anti-torrent thing has been illegal from the beginning but since “they” get to do whatever they want everyone doesn’t challenge it unless they’re rich.