[CobrastanJorji]

The DMCA is complicated, but you may not qualify as a safe harbor if you have actual knowledge of infringing content or if you're aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent. Running a website called "Kickasstorrents" may not qualify.

But in the realpolitik sense, I agree. Foreign company, angry US business interests, etc. I doubt this was argued out reasonably in a court beforehand.

[xmprt]

Torrents aren't necessarily illegal so I'm not sure why running a website called "kickasstorrents" is relevant.

I've seen a lot of software legally distributed using torrents where even the software creators link to torrents that you can use.

[coldtea]

>Torrents aren't necessarily illegal so I'm not sure why running a website called "kickasstorrents" is relevant.

Because we all know that website and what torrents it had. That "torrents aren't necessarily illegal" are neither here, nor there. Their torrents were illegal.

(Not that I'm against it, but well, it's not like they're fooling anyone with the "torrents aren't necessarily illegal" defense for their particular case. That wasn't some FOSS/PD software torrent site, and that wasn't why people visited it, or why it was run...).

[nitrogen]

Their torrents were illegal.

Was that true in the countries where they had a local presence?

[beernutz]

Torrents themselves are NOT illegal. They contain no copyrighted data. At all.

[rtkwe]

It's close enough though that it's a pretty easy case to make for contributory infringement.

[mechanical_bear]

That certainly isn’t settled law.

[coldtea]

Good luck arguing that in court

[coldtea]

That's more like a drug dealer caught with 200 plastic bags of cocaine saying plastic bags are not illegal, they contain no drug substances at all. Sure, but most of the torrents they had there pointed to copyrighted data, and facilitated their download, which is illegal.

[phoneperson]

More like someone telling people who their dealer is, except the dealers give away copies of books for free, some legal but most illegal.

[phoneperson]

I did download an Ubuntu ISO from there more than a decade ago, and some films that I presume were in the public domain due to their age.

[monocasa]

Interestingly, copyright for video is very complicated, and the remastering process necessary to convert from film stock to digital generally has enough creative input legally to be considered valid for copyright protection. I don't think it's currently possible for a digital film to be aged out of copyright.

[coldtea]

Well, my drug dealer also sold me a watch once. But 99% he had crack for sale.

[markdown]

> Their torrents were illegal.

Illegal in the US.

[coldtea]

And most of the world, where international agreements hold.