--- description: The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) is seeking to extradite Ukrainian national Artem Vaulin, 30, who was arrested in Poland on Wednesday title: Man Behind the World's Biggest File-Sharing Site Arrested image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf215b2e5f331bc1/69889cf7cf40a874bac44181/gettyimages-502404754.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Business](/section/business/) ## Business Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Tech](/tag/time-section-tech/) ## Tech Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # The Man Who Runs the World's Biggest File-Sharing Site Has Been Arrested in Poland by [Simon Lewis](/author/simon-lewis/) ## Simon Lewis Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jul 21, 2016 6:17 AM CUT  A stream of binary coding, text or computer processor instructions, is seen displayed on a laptop computer screen as a man works to enter data on the computer keyboard in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2015\. The U.K.s biggest banks fear cyber attacks more than regulation, faltering economic growth and other potential risks, and are concerned that a hack could be so catastrophic that it could lead to a state rescue, according to a survey. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images A stream of binary coding, text or computer processor instructions, is seen displayed on a laptop computer screen as a man works to enter data on the computer keyboard in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2015\. The U.K.s biggest banks fear cyber attacks more than regulation, faltering economic growth and other potential risks, and are concerned that a hack could be so catastrophic that it could lead to a state rescue, according to a survey. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesBloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images by [Simon Lewis](/author/simon-lewis/) ## Simon Lewis Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jul 21, 2016 6:17 AM CUT The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) is seeking to extradite Ukrainian national Artem Vaulin who was arrested in Poland on Wednesday and is believed to be the man behind Kickass Torrents, the most popular site for peer-to-peer file sharing. Vaulin, 30, faces two counts of criminal copyright infringement, as well as conspiracy charges relating to copyright and money laundering, U.S. [authorities](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-authorities-charge-owner-most-visited-illegal-file-sharing-website-copyright-infringement "undefined") said. The district court in Chicago also ordered the seizure of seven Internet domain names and a bank account belonging to the Ukrainian. More than 50 million users a month share movies, TV shows, music, video games and computer software on Kickass Torrents, and the site is “responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. “In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits,” Caldwell says in the DoJ statement. “His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice.” Defenders of file-sharing sites [insist](http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/20/12243592/kickass-torrents-artem-vaulin-founder-arrested-domains-seized "undefined") they are not in breach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the main law used to prosecuted intellectual property offenses, since they only facilitate sharing data — it’s the users who are breaking the law by sharing copyright-protected material, they argue. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4416415/artem-vaulin-kickass-torrents-arreested/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4416415/artem-vaulin-kickass-torrents-arreested/"},"headline":"The Man Who Runs the World's Biggest File-Sharing Site Has Been Arrested in Poland","datePublished":"2016-07-21T06:17:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:06:07.495Z","description":"Kickass Torrents is responsible for unlawfully distributing more than $1 billion of copyrighted materials, authorities say","url":"https://time.com/4416415/artem-vaulin-kickass-torrents-arreested/","keywords":["Tech","Ukraine","Crime","Copyright","Poland"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf215b2e5f331bc1/69889cf7cf40a874bac44181/gettyimages-502404754.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Simon Lewis","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/simon-lewis/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf215b2e5f331bc1/69889cf7cf40a874bac44181/gettyimages-502404754.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Social Media Apps And Computer Keyboards","caption":"Social Media Apps And Computer Keyboards","creditText":"Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4416415/artem-vaulin-kickass-torrents-arreested/","name":"The Man Who Runs the World's Biggest File-Sharing Site Has Been Arrested in Poland"}}]}] ```