KickAss Torrents to be blocked by ISPs in Australia following Federal Court ruling

ONE of the world’s most popular torrent websites will be blocked by Australian ISPs under a new Federal Court ruling trying to stop piracy.

AUSSIE pirates can prepare to suffer another devastating blow, with the Federal Court issuing a new blocking order targeting several KickassTorrents (KAT) domains — a popular website for illegally downloading films, television shows and music.

The Federal Court judgment ordered Australian ISPs to block users from accessing infringing domains related to KAT after a request was filed in May last year under new laws passed by the Australian government in 2015.

Led by music industry heavyweights Universal Music, Warner Music, Sony Music and J Albert & Son, the rights holders argued KAT demonstrated a “complete disrespect for music creators and the value of music”.

The original court filing, which had been ongoing for a number of months, saw a shift in focus after the US Department of Justice shut down the original KAT website. Instead of accepting this as a win, the labels shifted their focus to eight KAT mirror sites that appeared after the main site was shut down.

The rights holders submitted a new list of domains midway through legal proceedings, with Justice Burley agreeing KAT’s primary motive was to infringe or facilitate copyright.

“The large number of monthly visits to the KAT website indicate that the infringement facilitated by the KAT website can be described as flagrant and reflect an open disregard for copyright on the part of the operators of the KAT website,” he said, reported Fairfax Media.

ISPs now have 15 business days to “take reasonable steps” to block these domains, with the court order set for a duration of three years.
As part of the ruling, the rights holders will be required to pay each ISP $A50 to cover “compliance costs” for the DNS blocking of each domain.

The case follows the Federal Court ruling last December, which saw The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and SolarMovie blocked by ISPs following the efforts of Foxtel and Village Roadshow. However, the effectiveness of such rulings are yet to be seen, with infringing sites constantly remerging under different domains not blocked by the court order.