One way to prevent this from happening is by using SSL encryption. This is supported by more and more sites, and last year Google even went as far as encrypting all searches by default.

Most of the larger torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and Torrentz also offer SSL support. However, KickassTorrents is the first to force encryption. This means that everyone who visits the site will now be sending data over a secure https connection.

TorrentFreak spoke with the KickassTorrents team who told us that the new feature was implemented by popular demand.

“We’re just thinking about those people who will feel safer when they know all the data transferred between them and KAT is completely encrypted. People requested it, so we respond,” the KAT team informs TF.

SSL encryption will prevent one’s boss, school, or ISP from monitoring what pages are visited what data is sent or retrieved from the site. However, it’s still possible to see that the KickassTorrents domain was accessed, and how much time was spent there.

Also, it’s worth emphasizing that it doesn’t anonymize the visitor’s IP-addresses in any way, as a VPN or proxy might.

That said, enabling encryption is a good way for KickassTorrents to offer its users a little more security. On top of that, Google recently noted that it would prioritize SSL encrypted sites in its search results, something the site’s operators probably wont mind either.

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

KickassTorrents, operating from the Kickass.to domain, has millions of visitors per day.

Starting a few hours ago, many of these visitors noticed that their beloved torrent site isn’t working properly.

Those who try to access the site now get a blank page instead of the usual overview of popular torrents. The same is true for Kickass’ proxy sites.

At the moment it’s unclear what’s causing this issue. While some users fear the worst, the most likely explanation is that it’s a technical problem that will be fixed relatively quickly.

TorrentFreak asked the Kickass.to team for more information on the outage, but we have yet to hear back. We will update this article when more information becomes available.

Update: Nothing to worry about. Kickass informs us that they are doing some maintenance. The site should be back in an hour or so.

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

Pretty much all sites of a respectable size are targeted on occasion by unknown sources, and today several large sites appear to be hit.

TV-torrent group EZTV told TF that they are dealing with a serious flood of unwanted connections, which renders the site unavailable.

EZTV has currently no indication when the site will return, but they will do all they can to solve the issues as soon as possible.

Around the same time as EZTV’s problems started, KickassTorrents went down too. TorrentFreak asked the Kickass.to team for more information on the outage, but we have yet to hear back.

Whether KickassTorrents’ problems are also DDoS related is unsure at the moment. At the time of writing the site’s DNS servers are not resolving to an IP-address either.

As if that’s not enough, Extratorrent ran into trouble as well. Earlier today the site had some downtime, but a cached version is currently being served through Cloudflare.

We will update this article when more information becomes available.

Update: EZTV has returned, KickassTorrents is still having problems.

Update: Extratorrent is having issues again and released the following statement.

Update: Kickass.to appears to be coming back slowly. The KickassTorrent’s team confirmed to TorrentFreak that they have been dealing with a series of DDoS attacks.

Update: EZTV is down again.

“Extratorrent servers are under strong DDOS attack right now… We are trying to resolve issues. Sorry for inconvenience. Your support is highly appreciated.”

Kickass.to unreachable

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

The music and movie industries have honed their skills particularly well in the United Kingdom, where the main ISPs now block several leading torrent and movie streaming sites.

To combat this censorship so-called ‘proxy sites’ have been cropping up thick and fast. To gain access to The Pirate Bay or KickassTorrents (the two most-blocked domains) all one has to do is visit a proxy site instead and the real domain will bounce into view.

Finding a proxy for The Pirate Bay is incredibly simple since there are dozens of them, but in addition to KickassTorrents proxies being generally more thin on the ground, a new problem is raising its head which could restrict them even further.

In order to keep their operations going, proxy operators often display advertising on their services. Sometimes this is in addition to the advertising already showing on KickassTorrents but sometimes ads are replaced. This has caused friction between Kickass and some proxies.

A few days ago TorrentFreak spoke with the admin of KickassProxy about a problem he’d been experiencing.

“Earlier this week [my proxy] dropped offline and my server was unable to connect with KAT. I figured it was something I’d broken so I moved everything onto another server which worked for a bit until the same thing happened. I thought it seemed a bit suspicious and not just coincidental so I pm’ed KAT staff asking if I was being blocked,” the admin explained.

Kickass staff later confirmed that the site had indeed been blocked because the KickassProxy admin had allegedly replaced Kickass advertising with his own.

“Whilst I did add my own banner ads in place of KAT’s, they aren’t quite replaced as KAT’s banner ads just don’t appear on my proxy or any other proxy (as far as I know). All of KAT’s other ads remain and I offered to remove mine but was told that they’d made their decision and wouldn’t change.”

The operator of another proxy who spoke on condition of anonymity told TorrentFreak that they suspected their IP addresses had also been blocked but the problem with disappearing ads could be down to the way the Kickass site is setup.

“We would happily display their ads if they worked in addition to a few of ours to help with costs. KAT’s ads are served from a.kickass.to which as you may guess, is blocked,” he explained.

Going into some detail, the proxy operator then explained that Kickass (for unknown reasons, but possibly to save bandwidth) set their site up in a way that makes it extremely difficult to get proxies working. We didn’t get a comment on that specifically from Kickass, but they did give us an explanation as to why some proxies had stopped working.

“We have banned some proxies which were replacing ads. The only reason is that we don’t want to lose our traffic because of proxies which are not even showing our ads while they are providing additional load on our servers,” the Kickass operators explained.

So what we have here is Kickass being blocked in the UK in the first instance due to its claimed disruptive effect on the revenue models of the entertainment industries, followed by proxies being blocked for having a similar effect on the revenues Kickass. Hmmmm.

Additionally, Kickass also told us that they blocked some proxy sites for doing too well in search engine results.

“Another reason [for banning proxies] is that for some queries in Google, proxy’s pages were placed even higher than [Kickass' results],” the site explained.

Quite why proxy sites have been outgunning the official domain in Google’s results is uncertain, but the search engine may well be down-ranking ‘pirate site’ domains as it promised the music industry it would.

But despite KAT’s approach to some proxies, it is possible for them to work with others.

Drastik, the admin of PirateProxy.net, the world’s largest Pirate Bay proxy, told TorrentFreak that he had previously spoken with the KAT admins about ads and had reached an agreement.

“When my KAT proxy (katproxy.com) started getting a lot of traffic, I contacted a KAT admin and asked if I could add one banner advertisement to cover my server costs. They said that it was okay and I added that one ad. My proxy has been running fine,” he explained.

Finally, it seems that KAT has a plan to help the site remain accessible in the future, even without the assistance of third-party proxies.

“In the nearest future a number of official proxies will be started as well so KAT definitely will be available through its official proxies even in case of any issues with our main domain,” KAT concludes.

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

The RIAA is one of the most active senders and has asked Google to remove over 23 million links to copyrighted content.

Perhaps inspired by its musical counterpart the MPAA also joined in last month, but clearly with a different strategy. The RIAA submits over half a million URLs per week but the MPAA is currently averaging a measly 163.

However, looking more closely at the MPAA’s takedown notices we see an interesting pattern. Where other copyright holders use dragnet scripts to take down everything that links to infringing copies, the MPAA specifically targets homepages of websites.

One of the targets taken out this week is the new KickassTorrents domain Kickass.to. Just four days after the torrent site switched to a new domain following legal troubles in the Philippines, the MPAA sent the following notice.

As a result of this notice the Kickass.to homepage no longer appears in Google search results but this is no isolated incident.

As can be seen here, most of MPAA’s takedown notices only contain a few URLs, often homepages of download portals or streaming sites. In many cases the infringing work listed in the takedown request no longer appears on the homepage, and the MPAA often fails to list the internal page it’s supposed to link to.

Overall this strategy is producing varying results as Google takes “no action” in response to many of the MPAA’s notices. In some instances this is because the movie group added a space to the URL, producing a 404 error. However, Google also appears to dislike the submissions of URLs that indirectly link to infringing content.

The question that remains is why the movie group chooses to specifically target homepages while leaving many infringing links online. One likely answer is that it’s trying to reduce traffic to the sites by making them harder to find through generic search terms such as “download free movies.”

TorrentFreak asked the MPAA to comment on their strategy a few days ago, but we have yet to receive a response.

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

This popularity attracted the attention of several copyright holder groups, including the Philippine record label association PARI. In an attempt to shut down the site, PARI launched a legal procedure in which the KAT.ph domain owners are accused of facilitating copyright infringements.

This resulted in the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) issuing a temporary restraining order last week. The dotPH registry was ordered to suspend the domain name for 72 hours, a period which has now ended.

This means that once again the KickassTorrents team has full control over its KAT.ph domain.

Although the torrent site isn’t expected to revert to the .ph domain, the move is important as the KickassTorrents team are able to point the site’s users to the new Kickass.to domain. This minimizes the loss in visitors and helps Google to index the site’s new home.

At the same time the legal proceedings will continue behind the scenes.

The dotPH registry, which maintains the database of PH domain names, say that the domain owners now have the option to appeal the court’s decision. The company adds that
the domain could again be at risk if the previous order comes back into effect.

“If the restraining order is extended, we will comply and suspend the domain,” dotPH founder Emil Avancena tells TorrentFreak.

Whether this will happen is uncertain at this point. The KickassTorrents team hasn’t made any public comments on the case thus far. However, the Intellectual Property Office says that it will try to hear all sides of the story before making a final decision.

“Unless the complainant voluntarily desists from pursuing the case, it shall proceed. The IPOPHL shall decide on the matter based on the evidence presented by all parties,” IPOPHL informs TorrentFreak.

Even if the action results in a permanent domain seizure, this will achieve very little as KickassTorrents has already moved to another domain.

DotPH’s Emil Avancena agrees that domain seizures are not very useful when it comes to making websites unavailable to the public. He sees more results from ISP blockades, which have become more prevalent in European countries recently.

“It’s a simple matter to move to another domain. Getting ISPs to block the sites would be more effective but not foolproof, as the Great Firewall of China has shown,” Avancena says.

KickassTorrents, meanwhile, appears to be unfazed by all the commotion and continues business as usual at the new Kickass.to domain. It’s unknown if they intend to file an appeal and in their announcement of the domain change there is no mention of a legal case at all.

“We had to drop Kat.ph as a part of our global maintenance and move to Kickass.to. This was a hard decision, but it was necessary for the further development of KickassTorrents,” the KAT staff explain.

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

This status has put the site on the radar of the U.S. Government and a wide variety of entertainment industry groups around the world.

Yesterday the torrent site ran into trouble with its KAT.ph domain, and there were signs suggesting the domain was no longer in control of the original owners. Over the past few hours more details have emerged, and the Government of the Philippines has now confirmed that the domain name has been seized on copyright grounds.

The seizure is the result of a complaint filed by the Philippine Association of the Recording Industry and several individual music labels. The complaint stated that KickassTorrents was causing “irreparable damages” to the music industry, and a local court agreed to suspend the site’s domain.

“The complaint alleges that the registrant of KAT.ph is violating intellectual property rights by making copyrighted music available for download to its users,” the dotPH registry informed TorrentFreak.

Early this week the Philippine Intellectual Property Office issued a temporary restraining Order directing the dotPH registry to suspend the KAT.ph domain for 72 hours. The order, signed by the IPO Bureau of Legal Affairs, will become final if the domain owners don’t appeal.

According to dotPH, the company that maintains the database of PH domain names, the music industry first complained about KickassTorrents in 2011. However, the company said at the time that it would only take action following a court order.

“dotPH was initially contacted by the complainants’ lawyers in December of 2011 with a demand to take down the domain, and dotPH agreed to cooperate if provided with an order from a court or appropriate authority,” TorrentFreak was informed.

“dotPH received the restraining order earlier this week and subsequently suspended kat.ph in compliance with IPO’s directive,” the registry adds.

While the case is presented as a local action aimed at preventing piracy of original Filipino music, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if U.S. forces have also been applying pressure. In its latest Special 301 Report the U.S. Government listed the Philippines on its copyright “watch list,” demanding further action against so-called rogue sites.

“The United States looks to the Philippines to take important steps to address piracy over the Internet, in particular with respect to notorious online markets,” the Office of the United States Trade Representative wrote in its report.

TorrentFreak reached out to the KickassTorrents team for a comment on the domain seizure, but we have yet to hear back.

Whether the seizure will have much of an effect has yet to be seen. After the domain name was taken away KickassTorrents quickly moved to a new one, and the site continues to operate under the new Kickass.to domain.

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

KickassTorrents, known more recently as simply KAT.ph, has become one of the most loved torrent sites on the Internet. In common with The Pirate Bay, when the site goes down TorrentFreak gets bombarded with emails from users wanting to know what’s going on. Today is such a day.

A couple of hours the ago the site simply disappeared from the Internet with the site’s operators departing with a brief “We have an unexpected maintenance” message on Twitter.

All emails to KAT’s operators are currently bouncing due to what appears to be an issue with their KAT.ph domain. “Destination .PH Domain does not exist or has expired,” is the message we get in return.

As can be seen from the image below, a check for KAT.ph indicates that the site’s DNS is functioning ‘correctly’, except for in Italy and India where it’s null routed and blocked respectively.

However, on closer inspection we can see that instead of pointing to the usual IP addresses associated with the site, currently the KAT.ph domain points to an IP address range associated with DotPH, the official registrar for the Philippines where KickAss registered their domain.

We cannot say with absolute certainty what this means, but it seems likely that KAT may be experiencing issues with DotPH over their domain. It is feasible that the domain has been reclaimed by the registry although on what grounds and for how long is impossible to predict.

In the meantime TorrentFreak has been informed by ProxyBay.me, the operator of the ProxyKat.net site (which still provides access to KickassTorrents), that around 50% of his proxies have begun diverting to a new domain, Kickass.to. Whether this switch is a permanent or temporary measure will probably become apparent in the hours to come.

Finally, as previously reported, a site called TorrentMirrors claims to keep torrent sites alive, even while they’re down. At this moment it appears to be keeping its word.

Update: According to a post by KAT staff member Chew the .ph domain has been seized.

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

Owners of BitTorrent sites, on the other hand, believe they do nothing wrong.

All of the major torrent sites, The Pirate Bay excluded, have a takedown policy and remove links to infringing content when they’re asked to. However, for some reason copyright holders send many more takedown requests to Google for these torrent sites, than the websites receive themselves.

In other words, Google is asked to remove links to infringing content on torrent sites, but the copyright holders aren’t bothering to take the original content down.

This unusual situation becomes more clear when we compare the DMCA takedown statistics of Google and KickassTorrents.

Over the past month Google removed more than 125,000 kat.ph URLs from its search index. KickassTorrents on the other hand received only 2,536 DMCA requests in the same period. In total Google received 1,344,885 takedown requests for KickassTorrents URLs while the site itself was asked to take down “only” 278,864.

So why this discrepancy? Shouldn’t the priority be to take down the actual URLs instead of Google’s links to them?

Speaking with TorrentFreak the owners of KickassTorrents explained that they have staff who remove infringing content swiftly when they are asked to, so it’s hard to see what’s stopping the copyright holders.

“We are very serious about removing copyrighted content following DMCA requests. We have staff who review and process all incoming requests. On working days the processing time of these requests never takes longer than several hours,” KickassTorrents said.

But perhaps copyright holders have another reason to focus more on Google?

It is no secret that they want Google to do more to make pirated links unavailable in their search engine, and high DMCA stats may give the rightsholders a better position in these negotiations.

While copyright holders are within their rights to ask Google to remove links to infringing content, it would make sense to ask the target sites to do the same. In fact, if the original content is taken down there is no need for Google to remove these links.

TorrentFreak asked the BPI and RIAA to comment on our findings but we have yet to receive a response. Perhaps they’re busy writing DMCA notices to Google?

Update: An employee of one of the content detection companies, who requested to remain anonymous, says that Google is targeted because they publish their stats in public.

“Copyright holders are interested in Google only for its “visual effect.” They can “see” how many links are removed so it’s easier for removal companies to show the ROI. (it makes them look like they are achieving something).”

Also, the employee says that KickassTorrents does not remove all torrents despite sending valid takedown notices.

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

The problem appears to be limited to the United States, Canada and Brazil.

Kat.ph returns no DNS records at all in these regions, but it’s unsure what’s causing the trouble.

TorrentFreak asked the KickassTorrents team for an explanation and we will update this article when we hear back.

Some of the KickassTorrents proxies appear to work just fine.

Update: The problem is being resolved, slowly.

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