KickassTorrents and the US Government Finally Reach a Settlement in Court.

2026 Update. This article was published in 2017; as of May 2026, context has been added based on current practices in Turkey's digital marketing and web technology sectors. The information below consists of practical recommendations under the Tech Agenda category that remain valid in 2026.

Last July, the popular torrent site KickassTorrents suddenly went dark when the U.S. extended its claws all the way to Poland and arrested its alleged owner Artem Vaulin, who was charged with two suspected copyright infringement offenses. TorrentFreak reports that this week, the KickassTorrents legal team and the U.S. Department of Justice finally went head-to-head in court. Defense attorney Ira Rothken, who has previously represented Kim Dotcom — another individual accused of alleged copyright infringement — in another case, insisted that there was no evidence of actual copyright infringement as he attempted to end the case. Vaulin's defense essentially argues that the case is flawed because torrent files themselves have very little to do with copyrighted content. Rothken also added that he expects the secondary copyright infringement claims to be dropped because they are virtually nonexistent under criminal law. In his statement to TorrentFreak, the defense attorney said "Torrent files are not content files. The reproduction and distribution of torrent files is also not separately a crime." He also said "If a third party uses torrent files for infringement, this happens after they leave this site, and this behavior is too random, inconsistent, and weak to impose criminal liability on Mr. Vaulin." Rothken also argued that the indictment is fundamentally flawed because the prosecution did not allege any actual copyright infringement anywhere in the world, including the U.S. For this reason, the defense said, KickassTorrents' function should be compared to Google's general search engines. Rejecting such a comparison, the prosecution argued that the torrent portal was operated as a piracy market and that advertising revenue from its profits ranged between $12.5 and $22.3 million. U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor Devlin Su also called on the Court to wait for the outcome of the extradition case in Poland before ruling on Vaulin's request to dismiss the case. The Illinois District Court is currently weighing the views of both teams and is expected to issue a decision soon. Following complications related to his health, Vaulin was transferred from a Polish prison to a local hospital a few weeks ago, where he remains under heavy guard.

The importance of this topic in 2026

The tech agenda field in Turkey underwent three fundamental shifts between 2024-2026: (1) mobile-first user behavior reached 78% of the market, (2) AI-powered content production and analysis tools went mainstream, (3) with KVKK, e-Commerce 2.0, and Turkish Lira improvements, the cost/impact balance of digital presence for small and medium-sized enterprises has fundamentally changed. The principles described in this article remain valid at the application level under 2026 conditions — only the tools and service providers used have been updated.

Quick checklist for 2026

• Mobile-first: Test design and content architecture first at 390-430px screen width; desktop is secondary.
• Performance budget: LCP < 2.0s, CLS < 0.05, INP < 150ms — Core Web Vitals 2026 thresholds have tightened.
• AI integration: Embed Claude/GPT-4 class assistants for content production, visual optimization, and customer support; not a one-time prompt, but a flow.
• Legal compliance: KVKK disclosure text, cookie consent (TCF v2.2), email opt-in must be double opt-in (DOI).
• Measurement: The GA4 + Meta Conversion API + server-side tracking trio has become standard; GA4 alone is insufficient.
• Branding: Rather than a single logo, dynamic brand systems (color, typography, motion) stand out on social channels.

Next step

To apply the topic in this article to your own project, you can request a free site analysis, directly submit a brief, or request a one-on-one meeting. I respond to all evaluations within 2 business days, in a KVKK-compliant manner.

The article was first published on 09 Şub 2017, and revised on 03 May 2026 to reflect 2026 conditions.