Mininova faces $7m fine for torrent tracking

Posted on 27 Aug 2009 at 13:58

Torrent tracking website Mininova has been instructed to remove all links to copyrighted material within three months or face a fine of $7.16 million.

The case was brought by Dutch copyright lobbying group Stichting Brein, which accused the file-sharing site of “contributory copyright infringement”—the same charge levelled at The Pirate Bay.

Contributory copyright infringement acknowledges that the site’s operators aren’t infringing copyright themselves, but instead accuses them of creating an environment that incites such behaviour. In this environment any copyright infringement that occurs becomes their responsibility.

“Mininova encourages users of its platform to make copyright material accessible via its platform, helps users find the desired file with the copyrighted work and ensures through its ‘administrators’ and ‘moderators’ for the copyrighted works that are accessible through its platform, also useful for its users,” the court’s verdict reads.

Unlike The Pirate Bay, Mininova operates a takedown program in which it will remove links to copyrighted material if notified by the rights holder. However, this only applies to individual torrent files with the company arguing it would be impossible for it to screen all uploads for copyrighted material.

“We are obviously not satisfied with this ruling,” says Mininova co-founder Erik Dubbelboer. “The result of this ruling for Mininova is that we have to re-evaluate our business operations. At this time, we cannot determine what this will actually entail or imply. We will have to examine the verdict thoroughly first.”

Author: Stuart Turton

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