Mininova

Last updated
Mininova B.V.
Logo of Mininova.svg
Mininova screenshot.png
Screenshot of mininova.org home page
Type of business Besloten Vennootschap (private limited liability company)
Type of site
 Torrent directory and search engine
Available in English
FoundedJanuary 2005;18 years ago (2005-01)
Dissolved April 4, 2017 (2017-04-04)
Headquarters Netherlands
Key peopleErik Dubbelboer
Niek van der Maas
Revenue €1.1 million in 2007 (before taxes and expenses) [1] [2]
Employees5
Advertising Banner / text ads
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedJanuary 19, 2005;18 years ago (2005-01-19)
Current statusOffline

Mininova was a website offering BitTorrent downloads. Mininova was once one of the largest sites offering torrents of copyrighted material, but in November 2009, following legal action in the Dutch courts, the site operators deleted all torrent files uploaded by regular users [3] including torrents that enabled users to download copyrighted material. [4]

Contents

On April 4, 2017, Mininova shut down, saying that it had been running at a loss "for some years". [5]

Site history

The site was based in the Netherlands and was launched in January 2005 as a successor to Suprnova.org, which went offline at the end of 2004 following legal difficulties. In April 2007, Mininova B.V. (the company running Mininova.org) won a domain dispute about the domain mininova.com, which had been exploited by a phisher. [6]

The word ‘mininova’ ranked 9 on Google's list of most queried terms in 2006. [7] In May 2008, Mininova indicated that there had been over 5 billion downloads via the site. [8] Mininova also ran a video sharing site, called Snotr. [9]

In May 2009, the Dutch copyright enforcement organization BREIN started a civil procedure against Mininova demanding that Mininova filter torrent files pointing to copyrighted works. During the proceedings, Mininova stated that it was not feasible for the site to identify such files, but said that it would remove torrent files that BREIN identified as infringing copyright. On May 6, 2009, Mininova began a trial of a content recognition system, which was intended to remove any torrents that were flagged as infringing copyright. [10] On August 26, 2009, the court in Utrecht ruled that Mininova should remove all torrent files pointing to copyrighted material within three months or face damages of up to 5 million €. [11]

On November 26, 2009, Mininova announced that it could not find a foolproof filtering system against copyrighted content, and limited its platform to Content Distribution torrents only, in compliance with the ruling of the Utrecht court. This resulted in more than 99.3% of the torrents on the site being removed. As a consequence, the website traffic dropped by 66% in a few days, and daily downloads fell down to 4% of the previous total. [12] According to Alexa Internet, the daily traffic rank in the USA dropped from within the top 100 ranked sites in early November 2009 to below 1000 on January 30, 2010. [13]

Mininova appealed against the court ruling, [14] and in December 2010 reported that a settlement had been reached under which Mininova paid BREIN an undisclosed amount of money, ending the lawsuit. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LimeWire</span> Peer-to-peer file sharing application

LimeWire was a free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Windows, MacOS, Linux and Solaris. Created by Mark Gorton in 2000, it was most prominently a tool used for the download and distribution of pirated materials, particularly pirated music. In 2007, LimeWire was estimated to be installed on over one-third of all computers globally.

BitTorrent is a communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a decentralized manner.

Topsite is a term used by the warez scene to refer to underground, highly secretive, high-speed FTP servers used by release groups and couriers for distribution, storage and archiving of warez releases. Topsites have very high-bandwidth Internet connections, commonly supporting transfer speeds of hundreds to thousands of megabits per second; enough to transfer a full Blu-ray in seconds. Topsites also have very high storage capacity; a total of many terabytes is typical. Early on these warez sites were mainly distributing software such as games and applications after the release groups removed any protections. Now they are also a source of other copyright protected works such as movies and music. It is strictly prohibited for sites to charge for access to the content, due to decreased security, and sites found doing so are shunned by the topsite community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BREIN</span> Dutch recording and movie industry organization

The stichting BREIN translates roughly as association for the Protection of the Rights of the Entertainment Industry of the Netherlands. BREIN is an association in which the Dutch recording industry and movie studios participate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Pirate Bay</span> Website providing torrent files and magnet links

The Pirate Bay is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer, file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TorrentSpy</span>

TorrentSpy was a popular BitTorrent indexing website. It provided .torrent files, which enabled users to exchange data between one another.

This is a timeline of events in the history of networked file sharing.

isoHunt Torrent index site closed 2013

isoHunt was an online torrent files index and repository, where visitors could browse, search, download or upload torrents of various digital content of mostly entertainment nature. The website was taken down in October 2013 as a result of a legal action from the MPAA; by the end of October 2013 however, two sites with content presumably mirrored from isohunt.com were reported in media. One of them – isohunt.to – became a de facto replacement of the original site. It is not associated in any way with the old staff or owners of the site, and is to be understood as a separate continuation.

Megaupload Ltd was a Hong Kong-based online company established in 2005 that operated from 2005 to 2012 providing online services related to file storage and viewing.

File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia, program files, documents or electronic books/magazines. It involves various legal aspects as it is often used to exchange data that is copyrighted or licensed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal issues with BitTorrent</span>

The use of the BitTorrent protocol for the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted content generated a variety of novel legal issues. While the technology and related platforms are legal in many jurisdictions, law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies are attempting to address this avenue of copyright infringement. Notably, the use of BitTorrent in connection with copyrighted material may make the issuers of the BitTorrent file, link or metadata liable as an infringing party under some copyright laws. Similarly, the use of BitTorrent to procure illegal materials could potentially create liability for end users as an accomplice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TorrentFreak</span> Blog on file sharing, copyright infringement, and digital rights

TorrentFreak (TF) is a blog dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing, as well as on copyright infringement and digital rights.

aXXo Alias of an unidentified internet pirate

aXXo is the Internet alias of an individual who released and standardized commercial film DVDs as free downloads on the Internet between 2005 and 2009. The files, which were usually new films, were popular among the file sharing community using peer-to-peer file sharing protocols such as BitTorrent. A download-tracking firm BigChampagne found — in a sampling period in late 2008 — that almost 33.5% of all movie downloads were aXXo torrents. aXXo encoded files to approximately 700 MB – the same size for a compact disc. Due to the re-encoded quality of an aXXo file, the suffix "aXXo" was often used by imitators.

RapidShare was an online file hosting service that opened in 2002. In 2009, it was among the Internet's 20 most visited websites and claimed to have 10 petabytes of files uploaded by users with the ability to handle up to three million users simultaneously. Following the takedown of similar service Megaupload in 2012, RapidShare changed its business model to deter the use of its services for distribution of files to large numbers of anonymous users and to focus on personal subscription-only cloud-based file storage. Its popularity fell sharply as a result and, by the end of March 2015, RapidShare ceased to operate and it is defunct. As of 2017, Rapidshare AG was acquired by Kingsley Global.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BayFiles</span> File hosting service

BayFiles is a website and file hosting service created by two of the founders of The Pirate Bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Countries blocking access to The Pirate Bay</span>

This is a list on countries where at least one internet service provider (ISP) formerly or currently censors the popular file sharing website The Pirate Bay (TPB).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RARBG</span> BitTorrent metasearch engine

RARBG is a website that provides torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. From 2014 onward, RARBG has repeatedly appeared in TorrentFreak's yearly list of most visited torrent websites. It was ranked 5th as of June 2021, and 4th as of Feb 2023. The website does not allow users to upload their own torrents.

Mp3skull was a website that provided direct download links to MP3 files located on third-party sites. It was founded in 2010 and the site has been the subject of controversy for helping users to find unauthorized copies of copyrighted music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YIFY</span> Peer-to-peer movies release group

YIFY Torrents or YTS was a peer-to-peer release group known for distributing large numbers of movies as free downloads through BitTorrent. YIFY releases were characterised through their small file size, which attracted many downloaders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Z-Library</span> File-sharing site for journal articles, books, and magazines

Z-Library is a shadow library project for file-sharing access to scholarly journal articles, academic texts and general-interest books. It began as a mirror of Library Genesis, from which most of its books originate.

References

  1. ↑ "The story about the €1 million revenue of Mininova". TorrentFreak TV S01E07. 2009-03-23. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
  2. ↑ "Torrent search engine Mininova earning €1 million a year". Ars Technica. 2009-03-13. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  3. ↑ Ernesto (November 27, 2010). "Mininova Dwarfed A Year After Going 'Legal'". TorrentFreak . Retrieved August 5, 2011.
  4. ↑ Daniel Emery (26 November 2009). "Court ruling forces Mininova to end illegal torrents". BBC News . Retrieved December 13, 2009.
  5. ↑ "Torrent Legend Mininova Will Shut Down For Good". TorrentFreak. 26 February 2017. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
  6. ↑ "Mininova.com is now ours! at Mininova blog". Blog.mininova.org. 2007-04-20. Archived from the original on 2011-07-23. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
  7. ↑ "'Mininova' the 9th Most Googled Word in 2006". Torrentfreak. 2006-12-19. Retrieved 2006-12-19.
  8. ↑ "Lawsuit + 5 billion downloads". 2008-05-28. Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2008-06-15.
  9. ↑ "The ultimate place for great videos!". Snotr. 2008-11-06. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
  10. ↑ "Mininova Tests Out "Content Recognition System"". Zeropaid.com. May 21, 2009. Archived from the original on September 22, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
  11. ↑ "Zoeken in uitspraken". Rechtspraak.nl. 2008-04-29. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
  12. ↑ Mininova Traffic Plummets After Going ‘Legal’, TorrentFreak.
  13. ↑ "mininova.org - Site Info". Alexa. Jan 30, 2010. Archived from the original on 22 March 2016. Retrieved 30 Jan 2010.
  14. ↑ Mininova limits its activities to Content Distribution service Archived 2009-11-28 at the Wayback Machine . Mininova.org. Nov. 26, 2009
  15. ↑ "Brein / Mininova settlement reached; lawsuit ended". Mininova. Archived from the original on 14 August 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.