The U.S. Department of Justice has shut down Kickass Torrents, the world's most popular illegal download website, seizing seven domains names associated with it.

Artem Vaulin, the Ukrainian identified as the founder and owner of Kickass Torrents, was arrested in Poland and hit with a four-count U.S. criminal indictment in a worldwide crackdown on the file sharing website and copyright infringement by the U.S. government.

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Taken down were Kickass Torrent websites kat.cr, thekat.tv, kickass.so, kastatic.com, kickass.to, kat.ph and kickasstorrents.com.

Once extradited to the U.S., Vaulin will be charged with operating a website that allowed people to illegally share music, movies, video games and TV shows worth over $1 billion. KickAss Torrents is valued at some $54 million and had estimated advertising revenues of $22 million annually.

Vaulin was arrested after the FBI cross-referenced an IP address he used for an iTunes transaction with an IP address used to log into KickassTorrent's Facebook page. The FBI identified Vaulin by one of his online names, tirm.

While it was still alive, Kickass Torrents provided a directory for torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. People worldwide used Kickass Torrents to illegally share copyrighted movies, TV shows and music, said the Justice Department.

Kickass Torrents or KAT opened for business in 2008 and since then has constantly changed its web addresses to avoid being shut down by the U.S. government. It became the most visited BitTorrent directory in the world in 2014, overtaking The Pirate Bay (TPB) that was also shut down by the U.S. government.

The seizures of both KAT and TPB, however, won't stop the bit torrents phenomenon. Downloaders can still turn to other illegal download websites such as ExtraTorrent, Torrentz and BitSnoop.

Entertainment giants such as the Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Universal Music Group are pressuring governments worldwide to crack down on digital piracy, saying they're losing billions of dollars.

Tagskickass torrents, U.S. Department of Justice, Artem Vaulin