More and more torrent sites fall at the hands of license holders following the brutal takedown on Kickass Torrents. The pioneering torrenting tank of a website Torrentz.eu recently closed down.

There was no explanation or warning given by the operators, but a farewell message was left on the homepage:

"Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines. Torrentz will always love you. Farewell."

To no one's surprise, a clone of Torrentz, which was established in 2013, just weeks before The Pirate Bay was founded, immediately popped up.

The clone – Torrentz2.eu – presents itself to users and visitors as a clone of the fallen torrent hub right from its welcome page. Its introductory message reads:

"Torrentz2.eu is a clone of Torrentz, a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines Indexing 59,642,496 torrents from 124,468,859 pages We will always love you Torrentz. Goodbye."

What remains unknown is whether or not this Torrentz clone has the original database of the 13-year-old torrent site. However, it appears to have the same function and facilities.

However, an expert from Torrent Freak clarified to Hackread that there is no such thing as Torrentz clone and that the one floating around online "will never be one."

He added that it does not have anything to do with the original. Meanwhile, no one has claimed ownership of Torrentz.eu and as of this writing, it is still operational.

The shutdown of Torrentz has clearly showed how serious license holders are in ending piracy. According to rumors, the next target will be ExtraTorrent. The Pirate Bay is expected to be targeted once again.

With regards to Kickass Torrents, its alleged owner Artem Vaulin is currently in prison, but his defense team led by Ira Rothken has requested the US Depart of Justice to release him and refrain from doing any interrogation.

"Defendants cannot be held criminally responsible for what users do after they leave the KAT search engine behind. The Copyright Act does not criminalize secondary copyright infringement," Vaulin's team said in a letter.