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)
Kickass Torrents managed to stage a comeback this week but the celebration by KAT and torrent fans might prove short-lived as the site reportedly went offline a few hours after its relaunch as KATcr.co. A new report confirmed that the site went down and the service was mostly intermittent but not due to fresh takedown attacks.
It was more of a case of the new KAT server overwhelmed by heavy traffic, TorrentFreak said in an updated report. "The site appears to have some technical issues, as it went down after a short while," the report said.
The same report obtained confirmation on the downtime from KATcr's representative, identified as Mrs. Smith, and was told that the site's tech people "are on it and will no doubt have it sorted out as soon as possible." Mrs. Smith issued assurance that it will not be an extended downtime.
She revealed too that KATcr went offline as a result of "a massive response from the torrent community."
"Unfortunately, the servers are having difficulty balancing the load of the absolutely huge amount of users on line at the same time," Mrs. Smith explained, adding that KATcr is taking the technical difficulty as a solid sign of "overwhelming response" from KAT and torrent fans alike.
Kickass Torrents back online as KATcr.co was made possible minus the active participation of alleged KAT owner Artem Vaulin, who remains under hospital arrest in Poland. According to TorrentFreak, KATcr is a fully operational site - boasting of fresh torrent uploads from the old KAT content providers and site support features like forum and community - thanks to loyal Kickass Torrents admins and moderators.
The new Kickass Torrents also gives due emphasis to security as the KATcr team revealed that "in order to keep our members safe we chose to rebuild and keep only safe elements," from the original site infrastructure, TorrentFreak said. KATcr made sure that security of the new operation is robust that its launch took some time, the report added.
It's nearly five months since Kickass Torrents abruptly disappeared in late July this year.
And according to the KATcr crew, they don't see any form of legal troubles looming on the horizon any time since the new operation is largely configured for community functions and as a search index for free download contents. "Torrents are not illegal and we do not host any content," the team insisted.
To highlight the fact that the resurrected Kickass Torrents does not contain copyrighted contents, KATcr has adopted the same DMCA takedown procedure being used by YouTube, TorrentFreak said.
Notwithstanding the purported security and legal elements attending the new Kickass Torrents operation, there is still no guarantee that KATcr.co will not be a target of takedown efforts, according to Venture Beat. And that begs the question: Will the new KAT stay long enough to snatch back the King of Torrents crown from its chief rival - The Pirate Bay?
