US sues suspected owner of KickassTorrents after arrest in Poland

The US is suing 30-year-old Ukrainian Artem Vaulin, also known as ‘tirm’, for allegedly owning the popular torrent site KickassTorrents. Vaulin was arrested in Poland on Wednesday. The KickassTorrents site can no longer be reached.

In a press release, the US Department of Justice states that Vaulin is being charged with criminal infringement of intellectual property rights and that seven domain names of KickassTorrents have been seized. In addition, the Ukrainian has been charged with planning money laundering activities. The US wants extradition to America.

The torrent site is said to have offered approximately 1 billion euros worth of copyrighted materials. The ministry estimates the annual revenue from the site’s advertising at $12.5 to $22.3 million. Visitor numbers would amount to approximately 50 million unique visitors per month, placing the site in 69th place of the most popular sites on the internet.

The investigation into KickassTorrents, founded in 2008, was conducted by Homeland Security and the US tax authorities. Researcher Jared Der-Yeghiayan states in his report that the site has received multiple so-called DMCA requests to remove copyrighted content, but they have never been complied with.

Also part of the investigation was that an undercover IRS agent bought advertisements on the torrent site to find out what the price was. For example, it emerged that an ad was for sale for $300 a day. Other types of ads were priced from $1,000 to $3,200 per day. Another finding was that some of the hosting was in Chicago. The indictment will therefore take place in that district.