The age of the internet has revolutionized Information, Communication, and Technology. In the COVID-19 pandemic, the internet has proven to be a blessing.
No one doubts the internet’s potential, as it has been the main reason for the world to become a global village. But as each and everything has pros and cons, the internet isn’t an exception.
You indeed must have read in your history books about pirates, especially about Pirates of the Caribbean! If not, then thank Hollywood for this piece of information. The era of Piracy was at its peak during the late 17th century and early 18th century.
As the golden age of piracy started to culminate, slowly, by the end of the 19th-century, piracy completely vanished.
Introduction of Torrents
The internet gave rise to another form of piracy, utterly different from the sea piracy of the Caribbean, known as the ‘Online Piracy.’ Torrents played a vital role in online piracy. They became highly famous as easy and user-friendly ways of sharing audio and video copyrighted content—even many credit Torrent websites as the hub of piracy even without having an account on it.
Without any doubt, torrents are indeed an excellent module for sharing information in text, pictures, audio, GIFs, and video. The lack of necessity for hosting on the central server simplified sharing, thus making it user-friendly. Torrent works using the peer-to-peer network.
This made many Torrent websites hubs of sharing copyrighted content like e-books, research papers, magazines, movies, documentaries, shows, web series, games, and many more. The growth of these Torrent websites was humongous. The traffic on these websites grew from thousands to millions in a few years.
Kickass Torrent and other Torrent websites
Many Torrent websites like The Pirate Bay, Hlaing Bt, and many more emerged as the most visited torrent websites. But, when The Pirate Bay was temporarily inactive on the internet, Kickass torrent swarmed and conquered the position of the most visited torrent website in the world by November 2014. Kickass torrent was founded in 2008, thus taking only 6-7 years to become the world’s most-visited torrent website.
Kickass torrent was very popular amongst the masses for its GUI, user-friendly maneuvering through the website, trustworthy torrents, data safety, and many more aspects. Initially, Kickass torrents sign up wasn’t even necessary, but Kickass torrents made registration compulsory after a while.
Legal Issues, Banning, And Censorship of The Torrent Websites:
A large number of Torrent websites allowed the sharing of copyrighted content for free. Due to this, the artists never received their royalty for their work. It caused a massive loss to many producers, production companies, and labels.
So, the more giant stalwarts of the production industry came together and decided to fight against these Torrent websites. These stalwarts started targeting the more prominent Torrent websites like The Pirate Bay, Hlaing Bt, and Kickass torrent. One by one, these Torrent websites were taken down.
Legal Issues, Banning, And Censorship of The Kickass Torrent Website
In July 2016, the domain of Kickass torrent was confiscated by the United States government. The original Kickass torrent website was officially dead after this move by the US government.
Moreover, the Kickass torrent’s alleged owner, the 30-year-old Ukrainian Artem Vaulin, was arrested in Poland. The United States government booked him under criminal charges and money laundering and requested his extradition.
Even before the complete elimination of Kickass torrent, it was banned and censored by numerous nations. To avoid legal problems, Kickass torrent started shifting its domain. It regularly changes its domain to nations like the Isle of Man, Tonga, and many more.
Moreover, it also started providing licensed torrents, thus marking the entry of paid torrents. This was when Kickass torrents introduced the process of registration on their website to ease buying and selling the torrents.
In February 2013, the High Court in London ordered the Internet service providers to ban three Torrent websites, including the Kickass torrent website, under copyright infringement charges. The UK was one of the first nations to combat the Kickass torrent website legally.
Web browsers Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox banned the Kickass torrent website twice because of malware and phishing. Kickass torrent quickly retracted the concerns of malware and phishing, and consecutively the bans were lifted. The reason could be due to the third-party advertising agencies providing ads with malware content and causing phishing.
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