back to article KickassTorrents kicked out again, this time by Australia

Australia's Federal Court has come to the conclusion that KickassTorrents' primary purpose is copyright infringement and has therefore ordered the nation's internet service providers to block access to its many URLs. The case is notable because it's the second win for Big Content under Australia's site-blocking regime and also …

  1. Sampler

    Oh my god

    Not an ISP level DNS block, however will people get around that, apart from, you know, those not using their ISP's DNS...

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge
      Pirate

      Re: Oh my god

      But from a practical point of view:

      1) It puts a block for the majority of people who don't understand that Google is not the Internet, or what actually happens when you click on any hyper-link or type in a URL.

      2) It avoids the collateral damage of IP blocking if a site uses a shared IP address with other legitimate sites.

      3) Those who understand how to bypass (1) would know to use a VPN to bypass (2) as well, so it not much less effective in practice.

      4) It fairly cheap & easy.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh my god

        ...and creates a black market for the cretins to buy their pirated movies from which funds organised crime etc.

        Banning things only makes things worse.

        Might as well allow torrenting and make the movie industry et al work harder to provide value for consumers. Piracy is a battle that copyright holders will never win unless they learn to provide something that people are willing to pay for.

        The world is heading in a direction where people will support people cranking out the content they want to see on a regular basis.

        Patreon demonstrates this. The minute you slack off or make shit content your backers drop away.

        Crucially content creators are paid to produce they arent paid to keep flogging the same dead horse over and over ad nauseum until everyone has a DVD. You get your money, you produce content, you move on.

        The primative movie industry doesnt understand this model as there is nothing in it for the leeches and hangers on.

        The movie industry needs to learn to adapt or die. Its as simple as that.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Oh my god

          "Might as well allow torrenting and make the movie industry et al work harder to provide value for consumers. Piracy is a battle that copyright holders will never win unless they learn to provide something that people are willing to pay for."

          But many people are cheapskates who ALWAYS look for the cheapest way out: value or not, and you can't beat free. For these people, the mere existence of free is the draw and will always win out over value, so making things worth paying for won't work with them. What else can you do then but at least try to dry up the free lunch?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Oh my god

            Well, I'm a cheapskate who always looks for the cheapest item. But I'll gladly pay a reasonable ammount, say $5 for a movie, $10 for a good book and $1 for a song, as long as I can watch/read/listen to what I've bought (not rented, licensed or other weassel words) until the day I die, on any device I want, in any part of the world I want.

            Oh, and I want the movie/book/song to be available as soon as it's launched in the original country.

            1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

              Re: Oh my god

              > But I'll gladly pay a reasonable ammount, say $5 for a movie,

              $5 for a movie is a bit cheap, Harry Shearer got nearly 10x that for making Spinal Tap

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Oh my god

                $5 for a movie is a bit cheap,

                No, it's not. If the movie is good then it will be seen by a lot of people making big bucks. If it's crap like the movies we've got for the last 5 years (all those pre/sequels, reboots, restarts, lego movies) then even $5 is too much.

                1. Charles 9

                  Re: Oh my god

                  "No, it's not. If the movie is good then it will be seen by a lot of people making big bucks. If it's crap like the movies we've got for the last 5 years (all those pre/sequels, reboots, restarts, lego movies) then even $5 is too much."

                  Oh? If they're so crap, how come THEY'RE the ones making all the bucks?

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Oh my god

              "Well, I'm a cheapskate who always looks for the cheapest item. But I'll gladly pay a reasonable ammount, say $5 for a movie, $10 for a good book and $1 for a song, as long as I can watch/read/listen to what I've bought (not rented, licensed or other weassel words) until the day I die, on any device I want, in any part of the world I want.

              Oh, and I want the movie/book/song to be available as soon as it's launched in the original country."

              ...and blackjack and hookers.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Oh my god

          "...and creates a black market for the cretins to buy their pirated movies from which funds organised crime etc."

          I always wondered about the "organised crime" argument and wonder is that real or just marketing to stop people purchasing pirated material.

          I have known a few people over the years that have profited from counterfeit DVD/CD/Blu-rays. None of them were connected to organised crime whatsoever, in fact they were normal people that decided to make a few bob off copied films and music. I also can't really see drug dealers peddling films and music as a side job. "here's your bag of smack, would like a copy of titanic to go with that?"

          I'm not going to argue whether this is right or wrong as my own personal opinion is that I pay for subscription services and to download something early should I wish to do so is not harming anyone or taking money away from anyone.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Oh my god

            "I always wondered about the "organised crime" argument and wonder is that real or just marketing to stop people purchasing pirated material."

            I think it may depend on what you think is organised crime. If it's Al Capone and/or the Mafia, then maybe not. But if it's a DVD pressing plant in the Far East or Africa pumping out millions of unlicenced copies in proper cases and printed covers to a quality level that it's not obvious it's a fake, then yes, organised crime is making a lot of profit from "pirated" films.

            Mind you, even in the days of Al Capone, there were a lot of seemingly legit businesses acting as fronts to launder the cash from the more overt crimes. Plenty of examples also of "criminal" builders using cheap substandard materials, or even operating a citys rubbish collection/disposal service while avoiding the regulations to illegally increase profits buy unsafely dumping the rubbish. Italy especially and Sicily in particular come to mind.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Oh my god

              Also note that in many places in the Far East, "cheap knockoff" is about as good as most of the population can afford, so little kiosks and sidewalk shops full of "collections", hot releases, and other things not worth mentioning can be found practically anywhere in those countries. And because of the economics of those countries, it's not really worth it for the copyright wonks to pursue them there. As long as the stuff "stays home," they're not too worked up over it. It's when the bootleggers go export that things start getting uneasy.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Oh my god

                "As long as the stuff "stays home," they're not too worked up over it."

                I used to frequent a DVD rental establishment whose stock of films and anime was comprised mostly of grey-market Hong Kong DVDs, with the occasional "legit" release (still usually the wrong region code) scattered throughout.

                Evidently, this was all well and good with the local authorities. He wound up getting shut down, however, for not putting the Hentai DVDs in the back (behind the swinging saloon-style doors with the feeble "19 and over" warning duct-taped to them). Evidently : Pirated Content = Good, Improperly Storing Animated Pr0n = Bad!

                ----

                Thanks to this shop, I saw many great Asian horror films, some almost 5 years before they were properly licensed for distribution in my country. Others were never licensed, and are now sadly impossible to find. Not that I actually knew the names in order to search, as the boxes generally had no English on them at all. The discs, however, did have English subtitles, and the translations were quite good. Not so much on the anime discs, with the English translations ranging in quality from "deplorable" to "Why have there been no subs at all for the last 5 minutes". Evidently, however, the Chinese subs were nearly flawless.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Oh my god

                  "Evidently, this was all well and good with the local authorities."

                  Because they're probably coming from the mainland, and they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them, so to speak. Where I went, like I said, the average person would never be able to afford legitimate copies, and the peddlers were just buying in bulk for measly profit, so going after either of them was pointless: they'd be like trying to squeeze blood from rocks. The real money makers were the bulk distributors, and they were savvy enough to avoid and/or bribe the authorities as they needed.

                  "Evidently, however, the Chinese subs were nearly flawless."

                  Kinda hints at you at where the subs are coming from.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Oh my god

            Organised crime is never brazen and often preys on the weak and vulnerable.

            The innocent loooking chinese guy coming round the pub with his bag of movies could well be doing so to pay off the trafficking bill for the rest of his family.

            Its poor bastards like that we need to be helping. Not the fucking movie industry. Fuck them. They just flood the legal system with bullshit and fluff.

            There are many layers to organised crime.

            Remove the profit, remove the draw.

            Taking a soft line on "free streaming" sites and torrents removes a chunk of the profitability of selling bootleg blu rays.

            Freetards will always be freetards. You can lead a freetard to a good deal but you cant make him buy it.

      2. dan1980

        Re: Oh my god

        @Paul Crawford

        Exactly. Like most people here, I am a tech and can get around much of this with little effort. But I don't think that tech people are the biggest problem for 'pirating' content. Tech people understand copyright and torrenting are aware of the legal cases - through sites like this. If we want do it, we know how and measures like this won't stop us.

        There will always be people who want to access content illegally and will do what's needed to get it. I feel that the bigger problem is the broader public acceptance of accessing content this way and this is largely due to easy access. If you are not tech savvy and don't follow news like this and jump onto Google and search for some movie, you'll find a place to download it quickly and easily and for free.

        I think DNS blocking is actually the right response because, as Paul says, it's low impact and avoids collateral damage while erecting barriers to complicate access for a large majority of people.

    2. TheVogon

      Re: Oh my god

      "DNS level blocking"

      They sometimes use IP level blocking in the UK too.

      Just run a router with an Open VPN client (such as Asus WRT or Merlin), connect to your favourite VPN provider (NordVPN have instructions for routers) and add a VPN routing config line like:

      Kickass 10.0.0.0/24 195.154.154.6

      Then you don't have to bother with a VPN client on every device....

  2. chivo243 Silver badge
    Headmaster

    I thought KAT was dead

    a long time ago...

    1. Syntax Error

      Re: I thought KAT was dead

      That is because you live in fortress Sad to see the Australians are loosing another freedom. IP is grossly over priced.

      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: I thought KAT was dead

        @Syntax Error

        Don't cry for me. I don't live in a fortress. But a torrent service that charges a tenner a month isn't really alive either... that is Sad...

        http://kickasstorrents.eu/unblock/

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I thought KAT was dead

      It is dead.

      The founder was arrested, awaiting extradition of the federal penal colony of Amerika, and the rest are fakes using the KAT brand.

      1. TheVogon

        Re: I thought KAT was dead

        Not correct - see:

        https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/16/kickasstorrents-is-back-thanks-to-original-kat-staff/

  3. Winkypop Silver badge
    Devil

    I. Must. Not. Click.....

    My government loves me and knows what is best.

  4. JimC

    Big whatsit

    I get very bored with people talking about Big content, when actually the content companies are tiny compared to the internet advertising companies who are trying to destroy their rights to charge for what they create.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Big whatsit

      Big content wants to stuff DRM into my hardware, and censor my internet. Fuck them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Big whatsit

        Guess you don't go to the cinemas, either. Haven't been to one in years myself.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Big whatsit

          Cinemas.

          I've heard of them.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Big whatsit

            If you do decide to go to a cinema. Here are some tips,

            Don't go to showings during times that teenagers may be present unless you like interruptions and idiotic behaviour.

            If you can book online then do so and try to find a seat where no one is sat behind you because invariably you will sit in front of someone with a cough, cold or really large adenoids.

            Expect the start time of the film to be wildly inaccurate. (I remember going to see Serenity and a ridiculously long trailer for about 15 minutes in the style of Romeo and Juliet for H&M, once it finished I loudly said "What the f*ck was that")

            Take out a loan for the (and I use this word reluctantly) food.

            Sack it, just download them.

            1. kain preacher

              Re: Big whatsit

              las time I went to theater the seats were comfy, it started on tim, there were no cell phones, no talkers, no ass holes. Oh and I went on a Saturday.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Big whatsit

              Matinee times are usually good, as the traffic is lower, the teenagers are probably in school, and you have a better chance of getting a seat in front of the cross aisle in the middle. The one thing worse than someone coughing behind you is someone with a big head in front of you.

              Plus you can go just after lunch, hopefully avoiding the con game that's the concession stand. The food is where they really get you, and since it's their establishment, it's their rules about outside food unless you can demonstrate medical necessity. The best I've been able to do is keep a box of Lemonheads in a jacket pocket; a decent-sized box can keep you distracted for most of the movie as long as you can obtain some ice water.

              That said, the overall experience is not like it was when I went as a kid. Not nearly as much fun.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Big whatsit

                If you wear a big coat you can smuggle in enough food to start a franchise.

                1. John Tserkezis

                  Re: Big whatsit

                  "If you wear a big coat you can smuggle in enough food to start a franchise."

                  Here in Australia, one of the cinema chains tried banning foods that did not come from their own shop.

                  Mind you, they canned that idea when they realised almost all of their half dozen patrons either stopped turning up, or just continued to not buy their "food" anyway..

  5. JJKing
    Megaphone

    BIG Smile, BIG Smile!

    KickAss blocked? Oh no........oops sorry, thank you PrivateInternetAccess.

  6. Haku

    In related news...

    10 Years in Jail For Internet Pirates Now Reality in the UK (TorrentFreak.com)

    Isn't life wonderful.

    1. jonfr

      Re: In related news...

      The film industry is always loosing money. Its only few films over the year that actually make profit first time around. Some films do make money in the end, but that might take up to two to three years until that happens.

      Blaming a loss on internet piracy is stupid. They should make less of the stupid crap that Hollywood is always making.

      1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Re: In related news...

        "The film industry is always loosing money."

        I thought that was the point of Hollywood accounting?

      2. Suricou Raven

        Re: In related news...

        If God's Not Dead 2 can turn a profit, it can't be that hard to finish in the black - though not on paper, for tax reasons.

      3. kain preacher

        Re: In related news...

        When you make movies like Pluto Nash and Dave what do you expect?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In related news...

      Thing is, the little guys are pretty much all the UK can target. Most of the "big" pirates are out of the UK's sovereign reach: many in countries hostile to the West.

    3. Kiwi
      Devil

      Re: In related news...

      10 Years in Jail For Internet Pirates Now Reality in the UK (TorrentFreak.com)

      Ohh.. This could be fun! Hey, don't like Ms May? Hack her home computers, set up a torrent client and some stuff that's copyright and set to "seed forever". Stuff from Sony and Disney should have the nasties coming for her PDQ. Bye bye Ms May, 10 years in chokey. (Though I forgot you have that snap election coming, good luck Brits!)

      Isn't life wonderful.

      It could be.. It could just be......

  7. Adam 1

    4096 can be expressed as 8.8.8.8

    Just pointing out some interesting math.

    1. Conall O

      and 1024 can be expressed as 8.8.4.4.

      easy way to remember google DNS IPs .

  8. Clive Harris
    Meh

    Unfair to donkeys

    What harm have the donkeys done? why does everyone keep wanting to kick them?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cinemas

    Public lounge rooms often full of people you would never associate with, stained carpets and seats, a liberal sprinkling of unknown detritus on the floor from the previous sessions, over priced junk food, loud adverts, film burn-through and unattended projection booths. I've even had rats in one.

    1. Kiwi

      Re: Cinemas

      I've even had rats in one.

      Pays not to think of what goes on in those places. Largely darkened area, lack of cleaning...

      Pays even better not to go, as enjoyable as the experience can be.

      1. Ceiling Cat

        Re: Cinemas

        "Pays not to think of what goes on in those places. Largely darkened area, lack of cleaning..."

        I was once employed as a Janitor at a movie theater.

        It's not an easy task to clean one, and often involves an electric leaf blower, a snow shovel, a huge garbage bin, and several buckets of degreaser.

        The one I worked at supposedly had carpet in front of the first row of seats, but years and years of people spilling full cups of soda (doesn't matter where it was spilled, all liquid runs towards the front of the theater) had left it more resembling squishy linoleum than actual carpet.

        I haven't been to the cinema since.

        1. Kiwi
          Thumb Up

          Re: Cinemas

          It's not an easy task to clean one, and often involves an electric leaf blower, a snow shovel, a huge garbage bin, and several buckets of degreaser.

          That, btw, is what I meant as "lack of cleaning". I remember when a theatre was taken over by a church, and under the original house lights the place looked fine. Then someone brought in one of those 50,000 candle power torches and shone it around..

          With the best intentions, and the best reasonable tools, some places are impossible to clean!

          BTW, and to all cleaners - you have my sincere thanks for doing a thankless task so few others are willing to do! It's a often disgusting low-paid job that gives the rest of us better lives, and means we don't have to deal with it! Much thanks.

  10. gd47

    Piracy funding 'organised crime'?

    Does that presume the funding of 'disorganised crime' is OK?

    In any case, isn't it the legitimate copies of DVD's, CD's etc. which are funding the drugs industry, given the propensity of Hollywood and the music industry generally for the consumption of, let's call it, Colombian marching powder?

    In fact, couldn't a valid case be proved that piracy is actually preventing the premature deaths of celebs by NOT funding their drugs habits?

    1. JimC

      Re: Piracy funding 'organised crime'?

      Usual sort of point missing argument. Sure the odd celebrity has a few quid less to spend, and sure who cares. But the people in the middle, the ones who were making enough of a living to pay the mortgage and feed the kids, are utterly wiped out.

      And actually there are in fact a lot more of them, and they are producing all the most interesting art.

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