A clone torrent site seems to be trying to keep digital piracy alive, even after other torrent sites have shut down. Torrentz2.eu is now live and reportedly functions like its parent, the now defunct meta-search engine torrentz.eu, although with a bit of difference.
"Torrentz2.eu is a clone of Torrentz, a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines," reads the message on the landing page. "Indexing 59,642,496 torrents from 124,471,086 pages."
OnManorama said that unlike Torrentz that listed content in the search page as movies, music, etc., Torrentz2 lists down the categories and there are now popular search tags. There are reportedly movies listed, and adult content can be filtered.
Torrentz2 surfaced after Torrentz shut down. According to Torrent Freak, the original site, which only provided links to other sites like Pirate Bay but did not have its own torrents, closed down on Friday, Aug. 5. During its 13-year lifetime, it was one of the largest torrent sites in the world, welcoming millions of visitors per day. After it ceased operations last week, visitors are only able to see a message that refers to the site in the past tense.
The owners of Torrentz pulled the plug on the website following the arrest of Artum Vaulin, the alleged owner of Kickass Torrents, in Poland. According to the Huffington Post, KAT was one of the most popular piracy sites with an estimated 50 million monthly visitors, and the U.S. Department of Justice estimates it to have been the 69th most-visited website since 2008.
Vaulin allegedly ran a website that "stole" more than $1 billion from the entertainment industry in the U.S. through digital piracy, said Executive Associate Director Peter T. Edge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, as quoted on the same Huffington Post report.
Musicians, movie makers, and other artists are losing revenue because of piracy, and authorities are trying to stop it.