Kickasstorrents can no longer rely on the support of its longtime users. But those same users are now worried about stepped-up government involvement.
Crowdfunding has birthed some brilliant projects. Like the Pebble Time Smartwatch, the weirdly popular Exploding Kittens, and Ouya. Indeed, large-scale crowdfunding campaign can sometimes lead to smashing success, especially when it’s picked up by multiple news outlets.
Very rarely does it lead to the project being shut down.
But that seems to be the case with Kickasstorrents’ ambitious crowdfunding campaign. The once-promising effort mysteriously disappeared after we reported here at Digital Music News.
Here’s how it went down. We first reported on Friday that a group of KAT moderators and administrators had started a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe. At the time of posting, the effort had earned around $1,116.
The reason for the funding effort, according to KAT forum poster johnno23, wasn’t to rebuild a piracy hub. After all, there are alternatives Kickasstorrents members are using. Instead, the focus of the new site would be the KAT community.
One day after the report, however, GoFundMe pulled the crowdfunding project.
But why?
There’s no news as to why the crowdfunding campaign was pulled. Authorities may have become involved because of high-profile, public statements, at least according to speculations from Ubergizmo. Or, that the actual campaign might have violated GoFundMe’s terms of service.
So far, mum’s the word, as no Kickasstorrents administrator or moderator has spoken directly on the subject. That is causing several users to express their outrage and worry on the KAT community site. One user is hoping that GoFundMe will “freeze the donations and money.”
Another is accusing torrent news site TorrentFreak of setting up KAT.
The only official word given by KAT administrators and moderators is a surprisingly vague statement about the GoFundMe campaign.
“’We’ve received reports of a ‘campaign organizer that was committing fraud’. For some reason, some envious people just live for the sole purpose of seeing others fail.”
The only option to help out in rebuilding Kickasstorrents is by donating directly to PayPal. But this is also causing some to ask the site to find an alternate way. After all, “if GOV (and it will because of popularity) finds out about this, they will freeze the account. And then, probably go after people in charge.”
It’s a very valid issue.
Speaking about torrenting, there’s a new development following the deaths of Torrentz.eu and KAT having. TorrentFreak is now reporting that the former torrenting king ThePirateBay has since returned to the throne in torrent search usage. The mega-torrent hub is also “quietly celebrating” its 13th anniversary.