The closure of popular torrent sites such as Kickass and Torrentz has affected a lot of Internet users. There has also been an impact on college students and their studies.

While these torrent sites are controversial in nature due to piracy issues, there are some free domain educational materials that can be easy passed to others in these file-sharing websites. With the shutdown, people are flocking to torrent alternatives such as The Pirate Bay and Extra Torrent.

CNN reported that Kickass Torrents was taken down by the U.S. government after its alleged owner, Ukrainian Artem Vaulin, 30, was arrested last July in Poland. This is part of the government's doubled efforts to fight copyright infringement.

The international community has been pressured by entertainment giants such as Sony Pictures, the Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Entertainment and the Universal Music Group, to end digital piracy. "Copyright infringement exacts a large toll, a very human one, on the artists and businesses whose livelihood hinges on their creative inventions," federal prosecutor Zachary T. Fardon said in a statement.

In August, Torrentz, another search engine for finding torrent files, has stopped its operations. According to Business Insider, the site is different from other torrent sites like The Pirate Bay because it did not host any torrent files. Instead, it served as a "meta-search engine," collecting the results of various search engines to get what the user was looking for.

IBTimes reported two years ago about how American college students have used torrent sites like Kickass Torrents and The Pirate Bay to share copies of their books illegally. This trend is due to the rising cost of textbooks which adds on the expenses that students face in college.

There are better ways to save money on textbooks than downloading them illegally, though. Students can check the alternatives and see if they can rent the required book, buy used, get an e-book version or buy a previous edition.