Reports have said that The Pirate Bay had a small win as its ban in Austria has been lifted. Meanwhile, the opposite can be said for KickAss Torrents, as speculations suggest that the torrent site will be down indefinitely as the alleged owner of the service has been arrested.

Although most torrent sites continue to be hounded by authorities in their anti-piracy drive, popular service The Pirate Bay managed a small win recently. According to TorrentFreak, a year after a ban has been handed down to most torrent sites in Austria, the Vienna Higher Regional Court has overruled the decision of the Commercial Court, lifting the ban for TPB. This means that last year's order has been vacated, and Austria-based ISPs can lift the TPB off their blocked sites lists.

This is welcome news to most netizens. In a statement, Maximillian Schubert of Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA) said that the overturn is an "important milestone."

Meanwhile, while The Pirate Bay is enjoying a brief respite, another popular torrent site, KickAss Torrents, may be down for good.

Reportedly, U.S. authorities headed by the FBI have arrested the alleged owner of the torrent service site. Ukrainian Artem Vaulin, 30, has been apprehended and slapped with anti-piracy charges, namely conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering and criminal copyright infringement.

Interestingly, speculations suggest that Vaulin was tracked down by the authorities with the help of tech giant Apple. The complaint paper noted that "Records provided by Apple showed that tirm@me.com conducted an iTunes transaction using IP Address 109.86.226.203 on or about July 31, 2015. The same IP Address was used on the same day to login into the KAT Facebook."

It is yet to be confirmed if Vaulin is indeed the face behind the KAT service, although the website has been entirely shut down starting with his arrest.