Just in: Only hours ago, owner of the famous torrent site KAT at kat.cr, Artem Vaulin from Ukraine, was arrested today in Poland; officials in the United States have requested his extradition. Shortly following his arrest, multiple KAT domains have been seized and taken down immediately.
KAT has become more famous even than ThePirateBay, gaining millions of traffic, largely because of their amazing web design, amazing achievements system, and highly trafficked forums. They really have pioneered one of the greatest achievements system on the internet today, and as a result have gained a mass following which has rivaled and even surpassed in website traffic the other most famous torrent site, ThePirateBay.
So called “mafia” members which have been dubbed the “MAFIAA”, short for “Music And Film Industry Association of America” in the United States, a pun on their real name of MPAA, have been the grit behind the “copyright” anti-piracy plague of the last 20 or so years, as they have mercilessly attacked some of the biggest software “pirates” in their mission to charge everyone ridiculous prices for software and trying to make it so that no one can do anything about it.
Back to the news, Artem Vaulin’s arrest is big news for more than just leaving millions of downloaders to head back to TPB for their pirated files; there is a deeper warning about the whole ordeal. Officials actually tracked and found Vaulin by posing as an advertiser in order to gain access to his bank account. This isn’t very surprising, but what comes next might have you on your toes if you think about it.
Vaulin was actually found because he logged into iTunes from his real IP and a short time later logged into the KAT Facebook page from the same IP. Apple then happily turned over his full customer details without question or any court order, which is really a crime; and then Facebook did the same thing. With this, tyrannical officials were able to track down the owner and arrest him. Unbelievable (and the fact that this is beginning to be actually believable is even more unbelievable). This means that if you ever use iTunes or Facebook and have any real personal details in there, then you are not safe from arrest even if you never break the law.
What is even more shocking about the whole ordeal is that in fact KAT has been far more aggressive in removing pirated files and in fact would comply with any and all DMCA takedown requests. This is one of the big reasons this is all such a shock. Even though there were certainly pirated torrents on the site, KAT cannot legally be to blame since anyone and everyone who submits a DMCA complaint will get the torrent removed from the site.
The charges that Vaulin was arrested for are, according to TorrentFreak: “conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of criminal copyright infringement”. Put in layman terms, these so-called “charges” are: running a torrent site, accepting money through advertising on your legitimate torrent site, and not complying with DMCA. However, DMCA was complied with, so the first are two fictional charges for laws that don’t exist, and one charge which is a total lie.
This means that these aggressive attacks against KAT are even more concerning, because technically, KAT did not really commit any crimes and has completely held to the letter of the law regarding DMCA complaints. Anti-piracy mobsters have actually broken the law in removing KAT because they knew that despite KAT following the anti-piracy laws, it was still being used as a traffic haven for torrent pirates. But the problem is, that isn’t a crime of the website owner.
A similar comparison would be like shutting down the internet because some people use the internet for piracy. In fact, actually that is what they have done, just on a smaller scale – a few websites. This is how it all begins. This is the kind of tyranny we have to look forward to if we keep letting the MAFIAA and similar anti-piracy mobsters get their way. You can’t just shut things down because you don’t like it when they aren’t actually breaking the law.
Instead of trying to pass more anti-piracy legislation, they find the owner of the site using shady nefarious privacy-violating methods in today’s world surveillance state and make up phony accusations to arrest them to make an example of them for anyone else who would defy the anti-piracy religion. That is practically the definition of tyranny and the same thing that Americans fought and died in the Revolutionary War to escape. Patrick Henry said famously, “give me liberty or give me death”.
Today, many people have been indoctrinated to act in fear to any official and comply with any order, even orders which violate personal freedoms and God-given liberties. We are living in a time of tyranny, the culmination of Orwell’s 1984 which has been decades in the making. You might even say we are worse off then we were 3 centuries ago in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was signed.
What can you do about this? Well first if you still have a Facebook account, go and delete all your real data. Remove all pictures from Facebook, change your name on Facebook, and after that delete your account. Wipe out your online accounts, never purchase from iTunes again, and never give out your personal information for any reason. You might say, “but I’m doing nothing wrong, what does it matter?”
Well you might not think you’re doing anything wrong, but what happens when tyranny passes a law that makes something you do illegal? What happens if one day being a Christian classifies you as a terrorist? What happens if the One World Government decides to file martial law and force everyone to get an RFID implant to be able to buy or sell, and everyone who refuses it will be arrested? What if you don’t want a microchip and GPS implanted in your skin? How easy do you think it will be to find you when your whole life is on facebook or twitter or google or apple or another social media?
You might be thinking, well this is all crazy, I feel fine and secure in my happy life, I don’t think those things are ever going to happen. Well, if you look honestly at the facts and the news you will find that it isn’t an “if”, it’s a “when”, since it’s all already happening right now.
With the advent of forced RFID chipped cards as of October 1, 2015, RFID in driver’s licenses and passports, and GPS in everyone’s cell phones which everyone has, to televisions which record everything you watch and even record your private conversations (yes, this is actually real), mandatory implanted RFID chips under your skin is right around the corner.
30 years ago people dismissed Orwell as a fiction writer, but here we are today, living in the surveillance state that he envisioned. Our every moves are tracked. Are you really just going to sit by and let it happen? Are you really going to give away your personal freedoms and liberties by putting your whole identity online?
Well, back to the story, the torrent world will never be the same again. The torrent community hasn’t taken a hit like this since Demonoid was seized and taken down for good in 2012. Demonoid came back in 2014 but almost no one used it anymore. Now ThePirateBay will be the last resort for torrenters everywhere – and also the primary target for the MAFIAA.
