KickassTorrents blocked by Chrome, Safari and Firefox as phishing website. (Photo : YouTube/Torrents)
A British citizen named Cullum Haywood, 22, could get up to 44 years in jail for running and assisting proxy sites that help users bypass blocked piracy websites like The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents.
In 2014, Haywood was arrested for running several proxy websites, which included Piratereverse.info (The Pirate Bay), Kickassunblock.info (Kickass), Katunblock.com, h33tublock.info and movie2kproxy.com. He was also linked to services that assisted internet users to route their traffic using the proxy networks so as to circumvent government blockades, Torrent Freak reported.
As the questioning ensued at the police station, Haywood accepted to voluntarily hand over the domain names which served as "mirrors." Otherwise, he would give a complete copy of the torrent sites that the United Kingdom high court had ordered the country's internet service providers to block.
After two years, Haywood is getting charged by the City of London Police Intellectual Property Unit with six counts of possession of an article for fraud use, and one count of converting and transferring criminal property. Under the U.K. law, Haywood could receive a maximum sentence of 44 years in jail if convicted, Slash Gear has learned.
However, according to law analysts, it is highly unlikely that Haywood could get the maximum sentence if he was to be convicted. They say that it is only an indication that laws in the U.K. are very aggressive to torrent sites, with hundreds of mirror sites already blocked in the country.
Online piracy takes place when users visit websites to access magnet links and torrent files to pirated content and then proceed to download illegally or share the content through peer-to-peer networks. This has become a main concern for copyright holders who make claims of losing a lot of revenue because consumers access content without paying for it.
As the analysts claim, it seems that the U.K. is using Haywood as an example to show how tough punishments can become. Although he still insists that he is innocent on the grounds that he does not run the main Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents sites, he will be forced to go on trial to give his argument.
Haywood will appear in Nottingham Magistrates' Court for a hearing on April 21. Here is a video showing torrent sites blockade in the U.K.:
