A popular Pirate Bay mirror site has just been shut down by authorities in Mexico, the location from which the site originated. The website, Kickass.mx, purported to be a working clone of the recently shut down file sharing site Kickass Torrents, but was actually just a Pirate Bay mirror in a Kickass Torrents skin.

We've been reporting to you on the big shakeout in the world of torrenting and file sharing, and on the losses of three of the most popular torrent sites in just the past few months.

First, the top torrent site in the world, Kickass Torrents, was shut down by U.S. authorities in July. Soon thereafter, popular torrent meta search engine Torrentz was closed voluntarily by its operators, who feared suffering the same fate as Kickass Torrents. Then, this month, another of the top 10 most highly trafficked torrent sites, Torrenthound, shut down voluntarily as well.

In the wake of the shutdowns, various clones and alternative mirror sites have emerged, hoping to seduce former users of the shuttered websites. While several of the Torrentz clones, which have been introduced since it closed up shop, appear to be legitimate and up-to-date working versions of the former meta search engine, none of the Kickass Torrents clones have been offering new material.

Instead, they are either serving up cached torrent links from up until the time at which the original site went down, or merely mirrors of another torrent website dressed up in a Kickass Torrents skin.

That was exactly the case with Kickass.mx, which looked just like Kickass Torrents, but was actually a Pirate Bay mirror. The site originally launched as KAT.am, but when that domain was seized, it migrated to several other domains, including Kickass.mx. That site was just shut down by Mexican authorities.

"This action took place after various distribution companies reported intellectual property infringements. In response, staff at the Center for Prevention of Electronic Crimes started a cyber intelligence operation to locate the source where this crime was committed," the Mexican federal police stated. "Currently the website is out of service, and our research continues to locate the administrators."

The disappearance of the domain is not the end of the site, however, which caters to the many file sharers who preferred the Kickass Torrents user interface to that of The Pirate Bay. Some users surely don't realize that the site is just a mirror of Pirate Bay, now the no. 1 site of its kind in the world, using Kickass Torrents' theme.

The former Kickass.mx site continues to operate at another domain, however, and its operators claim they are ready to add three additional domains to make the site more resilient in the future.