Kickass Torrents shut for good?

The alleged owner of Kickass Torrents has been arrested in Poland at the request of the United States governments, and domain names connected to the site have been seized.

The 30-year-old Ukrainian, Artem Vaulin, living in Poland, is the suspected owner of the site and is currently facing extradition to the US.

Vaulin allegedly owns and operates Kickass Torrents, which since launching in 2008 has provided a BitTorrent directory to let users illegally download movies, TV shows, video games, music and other media. He is facing two counts of criminal copyright infringement, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

Law-enforcement officials across the globe have battled such sites for years, but the task of shutting down such illegal operations remains challenging as pirates routinely switch up domain names and use anonymising services that mask their identities and locations.

According to officials, Kickass Torrents receives more than 50 million monthly visitors.