KickassTorrents (commonly abbreviated KAT) was a website that provided a directory for torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. (Photo : YouTube / Underground @News)
Artem Vaulin's United States lawyer, Val Gurvits, believes that operating a torrent website is not a criminal offense. Gurvits said that in case KickassTorrents is a criminal operation, the search engine giant, Google, should start worrying. The statement comes shortly after the Polish authorities extended the arrest of Vaulin on the request of the US.
"The arrest has been extended to November 19," Gurvits told Torrent Freak. "Artem is planning to challenge extradition through his Polish counsel. The hearing should be sometime in late October."
During the November hearing, Vaulin's defense team is set to fight the extradition by arguing that by operating a torrent search engine is not a criminal offense in Poland or Ukraine. The acts of which Vaulin is accused of apparently do not constitute a crime in Poland where he is detained, nor in the Ukraine where he lives and works.
Vaulin's counsel is even convinced that operating a search engine like KickassTorrents is not a crime in the US either. In case it is a criminal offense, then other search engines might also be in trouble, including Google Inc. According to the counsel, secondary infringement is not criminalized under the US law.
It is not the first time to meet Google analogy with regard to copyright infringement cases. Initially the now obsolete isoHunt.com argued the same in their civil lawsuit against several Hollywood studios, something that did not prevent it from losing.
In the past few weeks, the US KAT defense team has put much effort into setting up a meeting with Vaulin, something that has not been successful. For now, the alleged KAT owner is only allowed to work with his Polish lawyers, according to a different report by the same publication.
Gurvits and his team are optimistic that this will soon change in the interest of justice as well as allow Vaulin to prepare properly for his fight against the extradition request. According to Gurvits, since the alleged KAT owner is accused of committing a crime in the US under the United States law, denying him access to the US counsel is a deliberate breach of his human rights.
The extradition request is clear indication that it will not be easy to get KickassTorrents back online. Here is a sneak peek for more information on Vaulin:
