Mininova
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| Type | Besloten Vennootschap |
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| Founded | 2005 |
| Headquarters | Netherlands |
| Revenue | €1.1 million in 2007 (before taxes and expenses) [1][2] |
| Employees | 5 |
| Website | www.mininova.org |
| Alexa rank | 513[3] |
| Type of site | torrent directory and search engine |
| Advertising | Banner / text ads |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available in | English |
| Launched | January 19, 2005 |
| Current status | Online |
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Screenshot
 Screenshot of mininova.org home page |
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| Part of a series on |
| File sharing |
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Concepts: Networks and services:
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Mininova was one of the largest BitTorrent index sites. It is a directory and search engine for many kinds of torrent files. It does not, however, host its own tracker. In November 2009, the site operators deleted all torrents that enabled users to download copyright-protected material, i.e. most of the torrents.[4]
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[edit] Features
The site is based in the Netherlands and started in January 2005 as a successor to the (at that time very popular) Suprnova.org, which went offline at the end of 2004 due to legality issues.
Visitors of Mininova can anonymously upload torrents to this site, tracked by any BitTorrent tracker. Mininova does not allow pornographic submissions nor do they log the IP addresses of visitors. 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.[5]
[edit] History
The word ‘mininova’ ranked 9 on Google’s list of most queried terms in 2006.[6][7] On May 28, 2008, Mininova indicated that there have been over 5 billion downloads and a lawsuit.[8] The Mininova team also runs a video sharing site, called Snotr.[9] They also started to offer a content distribution service, targeted for independent content producers.[10]
As of May 6, 2009, the Mininova team began trial of a content recognition system, which will result in the removal of any torrents that are flagged as infringing upon copyright laws.[11]
In May 2009 the Dutch copyright enforcement organization BREIN started a civil procedure against Mininova demanding that Mininova starts filtering torrent files pointing to copyright protected works from its platform. During the trial Mininova stated that it was not feasible for them to identify such files by itself, but indicated that they would remove torrent files in case BREIN identified those files it considered to be pointing to copyright protected material. On August 26 the Utrecht court ruled[12] that Mininova needs to remove all torrent files pointing to copyright protected material from the platform within 3 months or face damages of up to €5 million.
As of November 26, 2009, Mininova announced that they could not find a foolproof filtering system against copyrighted content, and limited its platform to Content Distribution torrents only (thus becoming a minor torrent website), in compliance with the ruling of the Utrecht trial. All other torrents, copyrighted or not, i.e. more than 99.3% of the torrents, were removed. As a consequence, the website traffic dropped by 66% in a few days, and daily downloads fell down to 4%[13]. According to Alexa Internet, the daily traffic rank in the USA has dropped from within the top 100 ranked sites, in Early November, to below 1000, as of January 30, 2010. [14]
According to the staff's blog, they are still considering an appeal.[15]
[edit] Technical details
Statistics as of 24 November 2009:[16]
- Total torrents in database: 1,316,806
- Total torrent downloads: 10,062,351,935
Statistics as of 26 November 2009:
- Total torrents in database: 8,859
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "The story about the €1 million revenue of Mininova". TorrentFreak TV S01E07. 2009-03-23. http://torrentfreak.tv/. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
- ^ "Torrent search engine Mininova earning €1 million a year". Ars Technica. 2009-03-13. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/torrent-search-engine-mininova-earning-1-million-a-year.ars. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
- ^ "mininova.org - Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet, Inc. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mininova.org. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
- ^ Daniel Emery (26 November 2009). "Court ruling forces Mininova to end illegal torrents". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8382012.stm. Retrieved December 13, 2009.
- ^ "Mininova.com is now ours! at Mininova blog". Blog.mininova.org. 2007-04-20. http://blog.mininova.org/articles/2007/04/20/mininovacom-is-now-ours/. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
- ^ "‘Mininova’ the 9th Most Googled Word in 2006". Torrentfreak. 2006-12-19. http://torrentfreak.com/mininova-the-9th-most-googled-word-in-2006/. Retrieved 2006-12-19.
- ^ "Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2007, April 22 2008". http://blogs.iium.edu.my/jaiz/2008/04/22/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2007/.
- ^ "Lawsuit + 5 billion downloads". 2008-05-28. http://blog.mininova.org/articles/2008/05/28/lawsuit-5-billion-downloads/. Retrieved 2008-06-15.
- ^ "The ultimate place for great videos!". Snotr. 2008-11-06. http://www.snotr.com/. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
- ^ "Content Distribution + site enhancements at Mininova blog". Blog.mininova.org. 2007-12-21. http://blog.mininova.org/articles/2007/12/21/content-distribution-site-enhancements/. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
- ^ May 21, 2009 (2009-05-06). "Mininova Tests Out “Content Recognition System”". Zeropaid.com. http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86168/mininova-tests-out-content-recognition-system/. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
- ^ "Zoeken in uitspraken". Rechtspraak.nl. 2008-04-29. http://www.rechtspraak.nl/ljn.asp?ljn=BJ6008. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
- ^ Mininova Traffic Plummets After Going ‘Legal’, TorrentFreak.
- ^ "mininova.org - Site Info". Alexa. Jan 30, 2010. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mininova.org. Retrieved 30 Jan 2010.
- ^ Mininova limits its activities to Content Distribution service. Mininova.org. Nov. 26, 2009
- ^ "Statistics". Mininova. November 30, 2009. http://www.mininova.org/statistics. Retrieved 30 November 2009.
[edit] External links
- Official website
- "Mininova Trials Video Torrent Ads". TorrentFreak. 2008-11-19. http://torrentfreak.com/mininova-trials-video-torrent-ads-081119/. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
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