Batu69 Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 KickassTorrents, the world's most popular torrent site, has launched its own release group. KATRG has added more than twenty-one movie releases in the past several days, including Oscar screeners Room, Brooklyn and The Peanuts Movie. Perhaps unsurprisingly, copyright holders are already paying attention. When it comes to obtaining and placing unauthorized content online, so-called ‘release groups’ are what makes the world of piracy tick. Most closely associated with the ‘Scene’ during the 2000s, release groups now come in all shapes and sizes, from elite groups at the top of the piracy pyramid through to one-man bands seeking kudos from the masses. Another area closely associated with release groups are those affiliated with both private and public torrent sites. These can take many forms. Some are created by site members keen to gain recognition while furthering their chosen site’s brand, while others are operated by sites themselves. While The Pirate Bay has never had an overt release group, other sites in the public space certainly have. RARBG, for example, has a release group operating in its name and ETRG (ExtraTorrent Release Group) provides a similar function for that site. The latest site to jump on the release group bandwagon is KickassTorrents (KAT). Currently the largest torrent site on the Internet, KAT is certainly not short of visitors but it appears that the site believes it can better serve the public with the provision of a site-branded release group. At the time of writing the group, which appeared around a week ago and operates from the three-year-old username KATRG, currently has 21 releases. In addition to Blu-ray and web rips, KATRG is also offering the latest Oscar DVD screeners to leak online including Room, Brooklyn and The Peanuts Movie. KAT administrator Mr. Black informs TF that KATRG is being operated by a well-known encoder, whose identity will not be made public. “Having a famous encoder with us that has such massive experience in knowing what the users want helps to gain attention and can only bring some good things to KickassTorrents,” Mr. Black says. It’s worth noting that KATRG is not the original source of any of the titles uploaded so far. Instead, the group re-encodes Scene releases. That being said, lack of originality never hurt the image of YIFY, for example, who mostly re-encoded and then re-branded Scene releases. But of course, just like any other torrent, KATRG releases are vulnerable to takedown by copyright holders. The image below shows that a blu-ray rip of The Bad Education Movie only clocked 98 downloads before being removed. Nevertheless, KickassTorrents is offering a solution to this problem. It’s been in operation for some time, but essentially it remains possible to download releases even after they have been taken down from the site. In respect of KATRG this is achieved by a forum thread which lists all of the group’s releases along with their hashcodes. Should any be taken down, users are invited to enter hashes into another search engine which then provides the download in question. At the moment KATRG releases aren’t particularly popular with downloaders which is not that unusual for a relatively unknown group. However, just like releases from YIFY (and aXXo before him), KATRG’s efforts will eventually become trusted and with that will come popularity. Also, since the release group name is also being spread around other sites, it effectively becomes free and effective advertising for KickassTorrents – not that the site really needs any more exposure. News source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mossane Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 It was avout time, the more groups, the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonnyeast Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 Thanks for the info the more the merrier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asf Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 looks like they just took it down Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted December 21, 2015 Administrator Share Posted December 21, 2015 I find this idiotic. They are giving more reasons for the authorities to complain against them. A filesharing site like it should never even be in touch with the groups, let alone officially employing them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marik Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 It kinda makes sense, what with extratorrent having its own release group (ETRG) as well, so why not kat as well. We'll just have to wait and see how things progress from here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 ETRG team has been around for years though it started before they started putting release groups in jail . Its been in the news a whole lot now days of many groups who upload to kat are getting busted by Anti-P2P. So by being a member of KATRG would be like putting a big sign on you're back that says come get me, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asf Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 To all that have the torrent hash, there is no need to go and enter it on another search engine as the article says, only KAT themselves have produced a little application that you could enter the hash and it provides you with either a magnet link either a torrent file. I added to torrent file of the application to my post, to the ones that want to download it straight from KAT here you go https://kat.cr/grabdmca-for-kickass-v2-0-by-sality-t11379917.html. Here is the original forum thread of the application https://kat.cr/community/show/grab-dmca-kickass/ Another KAT user created a web page that also does the same thing http://kekasworld2.comli.com/KAT/DMCA/ Credit: one of the comments to the original blog [kat.cr]grabdmca.for.kickass.v2.0.by.sality.torrent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asf Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Or another idea that someone wrote in the comments section. If you have to hash of the torrent, just add to it magnet:?xt=urn:btih: and here you have your magnet link P.S. I see that there is quite a few ideas in the comments section, so i'm going to leave it for some of the more professional bloggers here to collect them all and make a useful guide Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ajay1982 Posted December 27, 2015 Share Posted December 27, 2015 Sounds cool.. The more torrent sites added, better it is.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hihello Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 Update: It appears that after just a week online, KATRG is no more. A statement from the site sent to TF has made it clear that KickassTorrents does not have an official release group and will not have one in the future. Anyone using the KAT name is not doing so with the site’s permission. As a result KATRG has been removed from the site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imran__sagar Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 thanks for news dear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.