The site’s original address at KickAss.so, based in Somalia, now shows a message saying that the site has been banned. Instead it has moved to its old home at KickAss.to, according to torrenting news site TorrentFreak.

KickAssTorrents has been  a popular target for copyright holders since it became one of the biggest torrent trackers — a directory that allows people to download files.

The site is the most popular torrenting site by some way, according to TorrentFreak’s listing of the most-used pages.

The team behind the site had expected the Somalian domain to be a relatively safe haven, but the address has been seized by the registry that looks after sites ending in .so. It is likely that happened after complaints from copyright holders, though that is not yet confirmed.

Requesting addresses to be taken down is a common tactic of rightsholders looking to stop torrenting, but tends only to mean that the site moves to another, similar address.

(independent.co.uk)