KickassTorrents

KickassTorrents
Web address kat.cr
Type of site
 Torrent index, magnet links provider
Registration Free
Available in Multilingual (30+), primary English
Users Over 1M per day as of August 2015
Launched 2008 (2008)
Alexa rank
 Increase 78 (February 2016)[1]
Current status Online

KickassTorrents (sometimes abbreviated KAT) is a website, founded in 2008, that provides torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. As of November 2014, KAT became the most visited torrent directory in the world according to the site's Alexa ranking.[2]

Blocking and censorship

KickassTorrents says that it complies with the DMCA and it removes infringing torrents reported by content owners.[3]

On 21 April 2011, KickassTorrents moved to the new domain name kat.ph after a series of domain name seizures by the United States Department of Justice against Demonoid and Torrentz.[4] The site later moved to several different domains, which the operators plan to do every six months, including ka.tt, kickass.to, kickass.so, kickasstorrents.im and kat.cr.[5]

On 28 February 2013, Internet service providers (ISPs) in the United Kingdom were ordered by the High Court in London to block access to KickassTorrents, along with two other torrent sites. Judge Richard Arnold ruled that the site's design contributed to copyright infringement.[6][7]

On 14 June 2013, the domain name was changed to kickass.to as a part of global maintenance.[8]

On 23 June 2013, KAT was delisted from Google at the request of the MPAA.[9] In late August 2013, KAT was blocked by Belgian ISPs.[10] In January 2014, several Irish ISPs started blocking KAT.[11] In February 2014, Twitter started blocking links to KAT, however by the end of February 2014, KAT was unblocked on Twitter.[12] In June 2014, KAT was blocked in Malaysia by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission for violating copyright law.[13]

In December 2014, the site moved to the Somali domain kickass.so. Reports stated that it was moved as a result of site's regular domain change.[14][15] On 9 February 2015, kickass.so was listed as "banned" on Whois, causing the site to go offline. Later that day, the site reverted to its former domain name kickass.to.[16]

On 14 February 2015, it was found that messages mentioning "kickass.to" were blocked on Steam chat, though "kickass.so" and other popular torrent websites were not blocked, only flagged as "potentially malicious".[17]

On 23 April 2015, the site moved to the Isle of Man domain kickasstorrents.im[18] but was quickly taken down later that day and was moved to the domain name kat.cr.[19]

By July 2015, the site's kat.cr address had been removed from Google Search's results. After the removal, the top Google search result in many locations pointed to a fake KAT site that prompted visitors to download malware.[20]

In October 2015, Portugal bypassed its courts by making a voluntary agreement between ISPs, rightsholders and the Ministry of Culture to block access to KAT and most of the other popular BitTorrent websites.[21]

In October 2015, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox blocked access to KAT because of security concerns with some of the ads pointing to malware; users can bypass the block by clicking on the 'ignore' link.[22] In April 2016, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox blocked KAT due to phishing concerns.[23] Both blocks were later removed after KAT dealt with the concerns.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "kat.cr Site Overview". Alexa Internet. Retrieved February 27, 2016.
  2. ↑ Alexa Top 500 Global Sites. Retrieved 14 November 2014
  3. ↑ KAT DMCA
  4. ↑ Ernesto (22 April 2011). "KickassTorrents Moves to Kat.ph". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 15 March 2014.
  5. ↑ KickassTorrents Moves to Isle of Man Domain Name. TorrentFreak. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  6. ↑ O'Carroll, Lisa (28 February 2013). "Online piracy: ISPs ordered to block access to three file-sharing websites". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  7. ↑ EMI Records Limited, Infectious Limited, Liberation Music Pty Limited, Polydor Limited, Simco Limited, Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited, Universal Music Operations Limited, Virgin Records Limited, Warner Music UK Limited, Weainternational Inc v British Sky Broadcasting Limited, British Telecommunications Plc, Everything Everywhere Limited, TalktalkTelecom Group Plc, Telefónica UK Limited, Virgin Media Limited [2013] EWHC 379 (Ch) (28 February 2013), High Court (England and Wales)
  8. ↑ "Moving to Kickass.To — Blog — KickassTorrents". Kickass.to. Retrieved 15 March 2014.
  9. ↑ "MPAA Kicks KickassTorrents Off Google With ‘Precision’ Takedown". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 24 June 2013.
  10. ↑ "Belgische providers blokkeren meer torrentsites" (in Dutch).
  11. ↑ "Irish Internet Providers Roll Out KickassTorrents Blockade". TorrentFreak. 19 January 2014. Retrieved 19 January 2014.
  12. ↑ "Twitter Blocks Kickass.to Links, Says They're Unsafe". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  13. ↑ Kickass.to has been officially blocked in Malaysia Jun 25, 2014
  14. ↑ "KickassTorrent Moves Domain to Somalia". Softpedia News. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  15. ↑ "KickassTorrents Moves to Kickass.so Domain Name". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 24 January 2015.
  16. ↑ Ernesto (9 February 2015). "Kickass Torrents taken down by domain name seizure". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 9 February 2015.
  17. ↑ Ernesto (14 February 2015). "Steam Censors Kickass.to Mentions in Chat Client". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
  18. ↑ "KickassTorrents Moves to Isle of Man Domain Name | TorrentFreak". Retrieved 7 June 2015.
  19. ↑ "KickassTorrents is moving to kat.cr domain". kat.cr. 25 April 2015. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
  20. ↑ Van der Sar, Ernesto (18 July 2015). KickassTorrents Disappears From Google After Penalty. TorrentFreak. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
  21. ↑ "Portugal Blocks Popular Torrent and Streaming Sites". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  22. ↑ KickassTorrents Blocked Again Over “Harmful Programs” October 27, 2015
  23. ↑ "Chrome and Firefox Block KickassTorrents as “Phishing” Site". TorrentFreak. 12 April 2016. Retrieved 12 April 2016.

External links

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