It is more than two weeks since the United States government shut down KickassTorrents (KAT), and the site's alleged owner, Artem Vaulin, arrested in Poland. Ever since mirrors and clones, including KAT.am, have surfaced to replace KAT main domain.
Copyright agencies have been on the lookout, and now, KAT.am has been brought down after various Hollywood Studios came together to protest against the said site. Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) sent an email to warn the domain before it was eventually shutdown.
The threat that was posted on MPA official website read, "This Notice requires you to immediately (within 24 hours) take effective measures to end and prevent further copyright infringement. All opportunities provided by the Website to download, stream, or otherwise obtain access to the Entertainment Content should be disabled permanently."
While the site has been successfully taken down, it appears KAT is not giving up the fight just yet. Speaking with Torrent Freak, KAT.am operator said that the American registry's domain has indeed been shut down, but they will exhaust every legal means possible to have it back.
KickassTorrents mirror operators are carefree about the latest incident amid the possibility of them being arrested. The operator reached out by the publication said that there is no need to worry since it is definite that someone else will keep the site running.
"If not the alleged owner, it can be us," the unidentified operator said. "If we are not there, still there will surely be someone else. This never ends."
Meanwhile, there are reports that following the shutdown of KAT.am, the site is now back online with kickass.cd as its main domain. The site as well has kickass.mx as its proxy on EastDSN.
Reports emerged after the KAT.am crew promised that the site would be back in 3 hours after the takedown. The developers managed to retrieve a copy of their database in a different server because of the multiple cloud servers hosted by KAT.am.
Currently, The Pirate Bay and Extra Torrents are the safest sites for users to acquire torrent material. Many have been flocking to the sites causing traffic surge.
Here is footage for more information on KickassTorrents mirrors and clones: