Mininova begins filtering out copyrighted material

The Web

Mininova begins filtering out copyrighted material

By Jose Vilches, TechSpot.com
Published: May 7, 2009, 10:42 AM EST

Just weeks after four defendants involved in The Pirate Bay case were found guilty of breaching copyright, and with a court date of their own looming, the folks behind Mininova announced they’ve begun running a content recognition trial to detect and remove copyrighted material from the site. The system will also prevent said torrents from being re-uploaded to Mininova later on.

The mechanism was provided by the copyright holders themselves who want an easier way to get torrent files removed than the current DMCA takedown procedure. The collaboration does not mean they are off the hook from a court case against Dutch antipiracy organization BREIN later this month, but Mininova certainly hopes it will better their position. I wouldn’t be surprised however to see them pay dearly for this move as users begin looking for torrents elsewhere.

The news isn’t particularly encouraging for the torrent community. We’ve already seen several BitTorrent sites go down in recent years, including TorrentSpy and OinK, and now The Pirate Bay, Mininova, and isoHunt are all facing serious confrontations with the entertainment industry. No matter how hard the entertainment industry tries, though, some see the fight against piracy as useless – at least in its current form of opposing technologies like P2P rather than embracing them and adapting their obsolete business models.

Related Stories

Court orders Mininova to remove infringing torrents

10 comments

Share this RSS

User Comments (10)

Post a comment

gobbybobby on May 7, 2009 1:57 PM	this is good, my View on piracy is that, Software/Games should not be priated, but having said that I have in the past downloaded a game before, But I have only pirate downloaded games I have owned or paid for in the past. My view on Music Piracy is that music should be free, I mainly pirate music. P2P is good, and could be used to deliver free software, including things like the Windows Betas, It would take the weight off of servers, making it cheaper to distribute, the downside is that if people stop sharing it all falls apart. It is good to see somethink being done about piracy.
phantasm66 on May 7, 2009 2:46 PM	you work for the RIAA or something? Nothing about any of this is good.
FoReWoRd on May 7, 2009 3:33 PM	Look piracy is wrong.... I used to download Gigs of files, now not even music is pirated in my house, for many it has become a habit, im not trying to stop you, but as they say 'Old Habits Die Hard,' the RIAA is fighting an unhill battle, but things like trottling and bandwidth limiting are clearly not working they need new strategies fast. realisticallly they should reduce the price of software and music so that nobody would take the trouble to pirate music or apps or even games. Anti piracy measures like steam work well as people pirate games but cant play online, more games should be on steam and other such clients not Securom and other annoying pieces of crap .
phantasm66 on May 7, 2009 6:46 PM	realisticallly they should reduce the price of software and music so that nobody would take the trouble to pirate music or apps or even games Now you're on to something.
hellokitty[hk] on May 7, 2009 7:44 PM	Originally posted by phantasm66: realisticallly they should reduce the price of software and music so that nobody would take the trouble to pirate music or apps or even games Now you're on to something. Yes, and adding more games for easy availability like Steam (I don't even like steam, but they make getting new games easy). Another huge factor is simply sitting in front of your computer, and all gamers do that , is so much easier than going out to the store. People say gas prices are also a factor, citing the marketing shift toward online ordering.
Tekkaraiden on May 7, 2009 9:04 PM	The only thing I download on a regular basis is TV episodes. I refuse to pay $75+ a month when all I want to watch is a handful of shows. They come up with a subscription service in which I get to choose what and only what I want to watch and I'll pay for it.
oinari on May 8, 2009 10:04 AM	Originally posted by FoReWoRd: Look piracy is wrong.... I used to download Gigs of files, now not even music is pirated in my house, for many it has become a habit, im not trying to stop you, but as they say 'Old Habits Die Hard,' the RIAA is fighting an unhill battle, but things like trottling and bandwidth limiting are clearly not working they need new strategies fast. realisticallly they should reduce the price of software and music so that nobody would take the trouble to pirate music or apps or even games. Anti piracy measures like steam work well as people pirate games but cant play online, more games should be on steam and other such clients not Securom and other annoying pieces of crap . Exactly, I'm getting really tired of hearing the same old "i only download this because of this". Either you believe the act of downloading copyrighted material is wrong or don't or just don't care. I agree the best strategy would be to reduce the prices of software music AND movies (DVD, Blue ray). To be honest I'm a little annoyed by this move by Mininova. Kinda late in the game for such implementations. Compromises of fear like this hurt the true cause of legal torrent use
rev_olie on May 8, 2009 11:08 AM	But its the act of piracy that's driving the prices up in the first place. So really people who download are making it more expensive for themselves as software companies and such are paying more to make the software more secure against pirates...so really its just going to turn into an even deeper vicious circle.
red1776 on May 8, 2009 5:55 PM	Originally posted by gobbybobby: this is good, my View on piracy is that, Software/Games should not be priated, but having said that I have in the past downloaded a game before, But I have only pirate downloaded games I have owned or paid for in the past. My view on Music Piracy is that music should be free, I mainly pirate music. P2P is good, and could be used to deliver free software, including things like the Windows Betas, It would take the weight off of servers, making it cheaper to distribute, the downside is that if people stop sharing it all falls apart. It is good to see somethink being done about piracy. are you for real !? the world according to you, you have divined that "music should be free" so you steal it? one could only assume that you have never worked for a living, for if you had, it would be logical that it might cross your mind that you might not appreciate it if someone arbitrarily decided that what you do should be free, and help themselves to your labor and efforts by way of theft. possibly one of the most asinine and solipsistic thoughts to ever darken the techspot comment board.
avoidz on May 9, 2009 1:57 AM	But its the act of piracy that's driving the prices up in the first place Um, do you really believe that? That the prices wouldn't go up anyway because it's a business and they want to make money?