With millions of visitors per day KickassTorrents (KAT) is arguably the most visited torrent site on the Internet, outranking even the notorious Pirate Bay.

After several domain hops KAT has been operating from the KAT.cr domain name for a few months now. However, in recent weeks many infrequent visitors have experienced trouble locating the site, leading to all sorts of problems.

Traditionally, the site has been easy to find through Google by entering the search terms “KickassTorrents” or “Kickass Torrents,” but this is no longer the case.

In fact, the official KAT.cr address is nowhere to be found in the top results. Instead, people see the unknown and unaffiliated Kickasstorrents.eu domain on top in many locations, as the screenshot below shows.

Google’s KickassTorrents search results

The KAT team informs us that Google began to penalize its pages a while ago, for reasons unknown. Perhaps there are ways to solve the problems, but the site is currently not doing any search engine optimization (SEO).

“It’s already about five or six months since we started to experience some kind of penalty from Google. The issue is that we were not performing any SEO activities at all,” KAT says.

What makes matters worse is that .eu site which tops Google search results is a scam. It doesn’t offer any torrents but instead prompts visitors to download File_Downloader.exe, which appears to be malware.

The KAT team finds it unfortunate that Google is sending tens of thousands of visitors to a shady site and encourages people to check the official Facebook and Twitter accounts for the latest official domain name.

Interestingly, not all search engines treat KAT the same. In Bing the site’s official domain name is not on top either, but it’s listed on the first page. DuckDuckGo does the best job, identifying the correct domain and even tagging it as an “official site,” which is quite useful to estranged KAT users.

DuckDuckGo’s KickassTorrents search results

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and the best VPN services.

A new ICANN proposal currently under review suggests various changes to how WHOIS protection services should operate.

The changes are welcomed by copyright holders, as they will make it easier to identify the operators of pirate sites, who can then be held responsible.

However, several domain registrars, digital rights groups and the public at large are less enthusiastic. They fear that the changes will also prevent many legitimate website owners from using private domain registrations.

To allow the various parties to weigh in ICANN launched a public consultation, and the overwhelming number of responses over the past several weeks show that domain name privacy is a topic that many people have taken to heart.

At the time of writing ICANN has received well over 11,000 comments, most of which encourage the organization to keep private domain registrations available.

A few dozen comments have been filed by special interest groups, but most were submitted by ordinary Internet users who fear that they will have to put their name, address and other personal details out in public.

Countering the “piracy” argument, several people note that the changes would do very little to stop people from running illegal websites, as WHOIS data can easily be faked.

“The truth is, if the website is an illegal website, then the information in the Whois is not going to be legit anyway. So you are not helping anything when it comes to tracking down crime. You are only helping crime by providing the criminals with more information. On people that are being legal,” one commenter notes.

Others warn that the proposals will leave the door open for all sorts of harassment, or even aid oppressive regimes and terrorist groups including ISIS.

“Please do not make it easier for these oppressive regimes and terrorists to identify and target the brave men and women who risk their lives by writing and blogging about what goes on in those dangerous parts of the world,” a commenter writes.

In large part however, the massive protests are fueled by the “Respect Our Privacy” campaign site which was launched by the EFF, Namecheap and Fight for the Future. This site allows people to submit a pre-written letter in just a few clicks, which results in thousands of duplicate comments.

The MPAA previously criticized the form letters noting that they are triggered by “hype and misinformation sponsored by certain registrars and advocacy groups,” while accusing the campaign site of spreading “completely false” information.

It will be interesting to see how the public consultation will influence ICANN’s proposal and the future operation of domain name privacy services.

The commenting period closes this coming Tuesday and will be followed by an official report. After that, the ICANN board will still have to vote on whether or not the changes will be implemented.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and the best VPN services.

Many sites go through periods of turmoil and Reddit is no exception. The past several weeks have seen the site and its management team battered by controversy.

The job of putting things back together has now fallen to Steve Huffman, the guy who co-founded Reddit in 2005. Following a six year absence, Huffman returned last week as chief executive and immediately embarked on a mission to tidy up the site and win back the favor of the masses.

Last evening posting under his Reddit handle ‘Spez’, Huffman laid out a fresh set of guidelines for users of the site. While there is bound to be some dissent, few will argue with the rule that “anything that harasses, bullies, or abuses an individual or group of people” should be banned alongside “sexually suggestive content featuring minors.”

However, the interesting inclusion of banning anything illegal, and the specific mentioning of copyright material, is likely to generate more debate.

While not mentioned at all in the site’s rules, previous Reddit user agreements have included clauses that require users not to post copyrighted material. The latest from Jan 2015 notes that users may not “infringe any person or entity’s intellectual property or any other proprietary rights.” It also highlights what will happen in response to a valid DMCA-style copyright complaint from a third party.

So if we presume that yesterday’s announcement is a signal that Reddit is today more serious about its ‘new’ rules than it’s ever been, how will the “no copyrighted material rule” affect the site? Well, to be frank, at this point that’s anyone’s guess. The start, beginning and end of the rule is shown in the image above and no further elaboration has been offered. That is somewhat problematic.

While linking to Hollywood movies and TV shows in /r/fullmoviesonyoutube is often a questionable activity, it’s clear that users of the /r/illegaltorrents sub have little idea whether they can continue or not. Whatever the outcome, Reddit has more immediate problems in plain view.

Currently Reddit’s second most popular sub, /r/pics links to many thousands of pictures hosted on sites such as Imgur which have been legitimately uploaded by their copyright owners. However, countless others might be infringing, either by virtue of being reuploaded by a third party without permission or simply due to the fact that they’re someone else’s images culled from licensed sources elsewhere.

Of course, if everyone takes the rule absolutely literally that poses huge problems for the site, since almost the entire point of Reddit is to point people to (often copyrighted) content hosted elsewhere. Luckily, users of the site can link to copyrighted content quite legally, by taking full advantage of their Fair Use rights in the areas of news reporting, commentary, criticism and parody etc.

So, the Reddit “no copyrighted content rule” doesn’t actually mean that users can’t link to copyrighted content, it just means that in some circumstances linking to copyrighted content is disallowed. And herein lies the problem.

Each instance of linking to copyrighted content, whether that’s an image, piece of audio or video, is open to debate whether such linking is allowed under the law. This will make it not only incredibly time-consuming for moderators to enforce this “no copyrighted content” rule, but in some cases almost impossible.

On a torrent site striving to be legal, for example, the question of whether a leaked copy of the latest Jurassic Park movie is legal is a relatively easy one to answer. However, given the incredibly broad range of subject matter and debate possibilities on Reddit, the same scenario is entirely more complex.

In reality, the only people who know whether content is infringing or not are the copyright holders themselves and they are catered for comprehensively under Reddit’s existing user agreement. Like any other user-generated content site, Reddit allows copyright holders to spot an infringement and file a complaint to have that content removed. That’s the DMCA in action and while rightsholders say it’s cumbersome, it does the job it was supposed to do.

Finally, some people will quite rightly argue that the whole point of having a rule is so it can be enforced. But if that’s the case and Reddit is in no position to sensibly enforce its “no copyrighted material” rule, what exactly is its point?

Well, it sets out ground-rules, and it helps Reddit to portray a more responsible image to potential advertisers and other corporate allies. They will appreciate the public signal being sent and hope that something positive comes from it, even if the end result is not very different from what we already have today.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and the best VPN services.

Dubbed the “Netflix for Pirates,” the Popcorn Time app quickly gathered a user base of millions of people over the past year.

Its popularity has also drawn the attention of copyright holders, who’ve made several attempts to shut the service down.

Today Popcorntime.io, the original and most used Popcorn Time fork, became the target of the latest takedown effort.

A few hours ago the domain name’s status was updated to “reserved,” which effectively means that the Internet Computer Bureau registry seized the domain name.

The UK-based registry previously took control of The Pirate Bay’s .ac domain name as well.

Popcorntime.io is “reserved”

The domain name may still work for some if the DNS entries are cached, but it will soon be unavailable everywhere.

At first sight the Popcorn Time application itself appears to work just fine, most likely because it doesn’t use the .io domain for any crucial functions.

Popcorntime.io is not resolving

The server of the Popcorn time site is also unaffected. This means that people who enter the direct IP-address can still see the site’s homepage. However, none of the links work, including the download, as these all point to the .io domain.

TorrentFreak reached out to the Popcorn Time team for more information and we will update the article if we hear back.

The most likely scenario is that the Popcorn Time team will switch over to a new domain name. They already own popcorntime.re and popcorntime.cc but at the time of writing both point to the seized domain.

Update: The Popcorn Time team informs TF that they were not informed about any changes to the domain. The team confirms that they can no longer modify or update the domain name and is trying to find out more. In the meantime, they switched to popcorntime.re and popcorntime.cc.

Update: TF spoke to the operator of a site which had their .io name seized previously. They were never officially informed either.

Update: The domain name is no longer reserved, which means that the Popcorn Time team regained control, perhaps through an appeal. We’re waiting for an official statement.

Update: The Popcorn Time team informs us that the registry initially acted on an old court order. Upon close review the order doesn’t apply to the domain in question, so control was handed back to the Popcorn Time team. This means that the domain is no longer seized.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and the best VPN services.

As the increasingly epic legal battle over every aspect of Kim Dotcom’s copyright infringement case continues, the latest focus has fallen on computers and other devices previously seized from the entrepreneur.

While some encrypted data has already been sent to the United States, the content is inaccessible due to U.S. authorities not having access to the passwords. Other data, cloned in 2013, is currently in the hands of New Zealand authorities.

This data is also of interest to the United States government as it builds its case against Dotcom and his associates. Earlier this month the New Zealand Attorney-General’s appeal to quash restrictions around sending the seized devices to the U.S. continued, with the Crown arguing for the clones and their passwords to be sent to the United States.

Partial objection to the move came from Kim Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield. While filing no opposition to the majority of the 2013 cloned data being sent to the U.S., Mansfield said that agreement could only be reached if the data was stripped of personal information and other data irrelevant to the United States’ case.

That suggestion was rejected by the Crown as impractical, with a note that even if such a task could be undertaken, New Zealand authorities would not be able to recover the costs of doing so from the United States. Mansfield’s opposition to the release of the passwords relating to the 2012 data was also opposed.

This morning three Court of Appeal judges handed down their decision and it represents a setback for Kim Dotcom and associates Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk.

In their ruling Justices Douglas White, Tony Randerson and Lynton Stevens set aside earlier High Court rulings, which now frees the Attorney-general to issue new directives to police under the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. This will enable the cloned devices to be sent to the United States.

However, it will come as little surprise that the decision is open to appeal. According to the New Zealand Herald, Dotcom and his associates will be able to challenge the move in a new judicial review in the High Court if they so choose.

With another ruling behind them, attentions now turn to Dotcom’s extradition hearing. After several delays the hearing is currently scheduled for September, but that date is also being appealed by the entrepreneur.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and the best VPN services.