Mininova Removes All Copyright-Infringing Torrents 352
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
Pabugs writes with news that popular torrent site Mininova has abandoned their attempts at filtering and simply deleted all torrents other than the legal ones they facilitate through their Content Distribution service. According to their blog post, they were left "no other option than to take [their] platform offline" after a court ruling from August. "The judge ruled that Mininova is not directly responsible for any copyright infringements, but ordered it to remove all torrents linking to copyrighted material within three months, or face a penalty of up to 5 million euros."
And thus dies Mininova. (Score:1, Insightful)
Farewell.
And a huge FUCK YOU to the MPAA/RIAA.
Another site will replace it. (Score:5, Insightful)
This may kill their CDN (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the success from the CDN service relied on the fact that millions of users visiting Mininova for general torrents would also be exposed to the CDN torrents. With Mininova's general torrent index deep-sixed, traffic will plummet to a tiny fraction of what it was before, and activity on CDN torrents will drop correspondingly.
While this means that users of the CDN won't get any extra exposure, it's still a useful service for pure distribution (they handle the tracking and seeding). Unfortunately, with no revenue stream, mininova won't be able to support that for long.
At least the judge is sane (Score:5, Insightful)
The judge ruled that Mininova is not directly responsible for any copyright infringements
After seeing the Google/Italy article, it's nice to see that sanity holds elsewhere.
Re:Another site will replace it. (Score:1, Insightful)
In some other countries servers that holds torrents (=links) are not ilegal because the copyrighted material are not stored on the server, and the normal people has some rights than protects them.
Yes, we can run, but being hunted is not fun...
Re:Debate! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Debate! (Score:3, Insightful)
Same droppings, different pile (Score:5, Insightful)
The MPAA/RIAA are not the ones to blame for this..
It was BREIN, the dutch RIAA... bastards.
Same droppings, different pile. The nine members of the MAFIAA (Sony, GE, Disney, Fox, Time Warner, National Amusements, Vivendi, WMG, and EMI) are the same no matter which country they operate in.
"search item" type:torrent (Score:2, Insightful)
So mininova turns into www.legaltorrents.com. What they could do though it just de-reference the links, but keep the torrent names in the list. That way people could simply do a websearch on them. That way the only way to take them down would be to outlaw web searches :)
Re:i wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:i wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bah. Remember Suprnova? It is only a matter of time until something else replaces it.
I've always wondered about this. Pirates get all upset and "they are traitors!" when the website operators give up and move on with their lives under heavy pressure from lots of multinational corporations and governments.
But when something bad happens to the guys running these websites, everyone goes "bah. someone else will replace it" and everyone turns their back to them.
Is this a growth some few persons like to fight for on their free time against such a power?
Re:Debate! (Score:3, Insightful)
Some copyright is quite reasonable. What we need is a legalization of noncommercial copyright infringement. Leave the rest of copyright law perfectly as it is. I should be able to share all the files I want, but as soon as I start trying to make money doing that, that's when it should become illegal (as it is today).
I don't think there should be a distinction between commercial and non-commercial, there should be a distinction depending on the amount of damages, and obviously commercial copying would give more evidence of damages.
But consider what could happen if non-commercial infringement wasn't punished: Let's say Steve Jobs has an argument with someone who happens to be the boss of a record company. So Steve Jobs buys two dozen XServes, goes to a record store and buys all CDs made by that record company, plus orders all their back catalogue, hires someone to load these CDs onto the computers, then makes them available to the whole world, without asking for a penny. For a million dollars, he could drive that record company into bankruptcy. Completely non-commercial.
Re:Not too sorry to see Mininova die (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another site will replace it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that TPB and Miniova are no longer cool. What good public sites are left these days?
and as usual... (Score:5, Insightful)
And as happens so often, a judge basically says "Well, technically what you're doing isn't illegal, but I still don't like what you're doing, and people are breathing down my neck to do something about you, so stoppit or we're going to bring the legal system down on you anyway. We may not be able to make it stick, but we certainly can make your life hell in the attempt." Surrender your rights and we'll leave you alone - persist and we'll make you regret it. Wonderful legal system we have here.
Judges that make rulings like that need to either be re-educated, or removed. Their job isn't to make the law, but to judge whether or not you've broken a law. (except in trial by jury, and then they don't even get that) Whether or not they like what you're doing, or whether or not they think what you did should be illegal isn't supposed to have anything to do with it. If they're more interested in writing the law, they need to give up their bench and run for senator.
Senators make laws and place restrictions on police and judges. Citizens break laws. Police arrest citizens that appear to have broken laws. Juries (/judges) interpret law and decide if citizens have broken a law. Judges insure a fair trial. Problem here is everyone wants a piece of everyone else's action. Oh if it only weren't for that pesky "separation of powers" thing...
Re:Debate! (Score:4, Insightful)
+1. If more people learned the power of saying "no" the world would be a better place.
Q: Want to work a 60 hour week for 30 hour pay?
A: No
Q: Want to let us look after your money so we can leverage it and then give you a tiny fraction of the profit?
A: No
Q: Want to borrow some of that money to buy an overpriced house?
A: No
The only reason "no" is not a viable answer to any of these and many similar questions is because there are far too many suckers who are willing to say "yes."
Re:Debate! (Score:5, Insightful)
And stop with the stupid after copyright. It's not like Miles Davis can benefit from any copy of Kind of Blue sold today. The purpose of copyright is to provide a source of revenue for the creator, so more people will create stuff, not for some label can profit more.
Re:Another site will replace it. (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet is actually a smaller place than most people think. When it comes to any given field, no matter how large, there are really only a few dozen major sites to consider. Sometimes less.
How many large torrent trackers are there really? Twenty, Thirty? I doubt it's over a hundred. Depends on your definition of large perhaps, but I'll make mine; A tracker which hosts TV, Movies, Music, Games and Software, and which has a large number of seeders and leechers (>10000). How many of these site are there? I estimate that there are about a dozen who really count.
Throw out as many platitudes as you like, but the RIAA et al are putting the bittorrent genie back in the bottle. Technology has not kept pace with legal manoeuvres and one by one the top sites are being shut down. With them goes the hundreds of thousands of technically inexperienced seeds and leechers need to keep torrents healthy. Trackers need critical mass for torrents to be useful, but this mass makes them an easy target for legal action.
This is still whack a mole, but the ratio of moles to hammers is, at most, 10:1. The decline of bittorrent began with the Pirate Bay but it will not stop there. Without major changes to how it is centralised, bittorrent will go the way of napster before it and you'll be back to getting your stuff on irc again.
The Net has changed. The Chinese government has proven that the internet and its users can be brought to heel on a massive scale. Netizens in general, and in particular the geeks whose obligation was to defend the network, have shown though lack of innovation that they are not going to defend users freedoms, anonymity or rights online. We'd all rather give our data to webhosts, ISPs, and Google; trusting them not to betray us. Technology has given power back to the big players, and not delivered on its promise to ordinary people.
Not all bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, I didn't really know Mininova before this. I had heard of it, but that's about it.
I did visit the site just now, and I saw lots of items about music that I'd never heard of.
Maybe it can become a good site to find new music from non-RIAA signed artists, who generally don't have much of a marketing/distribution platform? RIAA, meet foot, gun.
Re:Debate! (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, when you're working for them, such a denial of service could be seen as a refusal to work. Which not only could cost you your job but also seem a bit suspicious. And ya know, this time and age suspicion is all you have to raise to be a criminal.
Re:Debate! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another site will replace it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Another site will replace it. (Score:1, Insightful)
The internet is actually a smaller place than most people think. When it comes to any given field, no matter how large, there are really only a few dozen major sites to consider. How many large torrent trackers are there really? I estimate that there are about a dozen who really count.
Throw out as many platitudes as you like, but the RIAA et al are putting the bittorrent genie back in the bottle. Technology has not kept pace with legal manoeuvres and one by one the top sites are being shut down. Trackers need critical mass for torrents to be useful, but this mass makes them an easy target for legal action.
This is still whack a mole, but the ratio of moles to hammers is, at most, 10:1. The decline of bittorrent began with the Pirate Bay but it will not stop there. Without major changes to how it is centralised, bittorrent will go the way of napster before it and you'll be back to getting your stuff on irc again.
The Net has changed. The Chinese government has proven that the internet and its users can be brought to heel on a massive scale. Netizens in general, and in particular the geeks whose obligation was to defend the network, have shown though lack of innovation that they are not going to defend users freedoms, anonymity or rights online. Technology has given power back to the big players, and not delivered on its promise to ordinary people.
Ah, for mod points. Great points all. The aphorism that "the internet perceives censorship as damage and routes around it," always struck me as unfounded and self-congratulatory. China finally proved that it isn't true. And the assertion that "a new torrent site will replace " is equally unfounded. The last bulwark was demonoid and it's been down for the last 2 months. There needs to be decentralization and anonymization for torrent sites to continue to provide the service they do now.
Um what? (Score:4, Insightful)
LeTS JuST GIvE iT aWAY FoR FREE!!! LOLOLOLO!!! THATS THE ANSWER!!
Re:i wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pirates already have an entitlement complex. Why would they want to do stuff for the sites they are using?
Re:Another site will replace it. (Score:3, Insightful)
With the monstrous hard drives, you could swap collections such as "every watchable TV drama aired between 2000 and 2005" or "top 1000 songs by month 1970-2009" or "best 100 PC games published in last 5 years by metacritic scores" and so forth. Takes a lot less time to transfer the data if it's plugged into your machine by SATA or eSATA cable than it does by a typical broadband connection.
Re:Another site will replace it. (Score:3, Insightful)
The top of the iceberg is always small, as popularity in social networks resembles a power law. The network itself is for all practical purposes unlimited. Like the iceberg, if you chop off the top, it rises slightly and you have a new top (which is again small).
Believe it or not, this is actually a good thing. The internet, like any large system, has a lot of inertia. People use what's good enough for as long as they can, and it is only by being forced to change that legacy technology with lots of users has a chance to be replaced.
In a hierarchical organization, change happens by fiat from the top down. In an anarchic place like the internet, shutting down servers through legal attacks serves the same purpose. It sucks for the server operators, but it forces users to try out newer and different solutions, which are often designed to fix old flaws. If you like analogies, the RIAA is like a fire that cleans out the deadwood.
Re:i wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright holders have an entitlement complex: they expect to get paid over and over in the future for work they did decades in the past.
What crap. A TON of pirated content happens to be recent movies, games, music, books, etc. Your argument is intellectually dishonest.
They think one big hit entitles them to a free ride for the rest of their lives
This is BS. Content creators invest millions each year into creating new content. A significant proportion of music,movies,etc are never going to become hits. The major incentive to continue pumping out new content is the hope that one of those investments will turn into a hit and pay off. That is the current business model in existence. The incentive of earning a lot of money seems to work in motivating people to create better content. Pirates are effectively destroying this incentive. Yes there will be people who will continue to create content and give it away for the "love of the art" or whatever (even they need to find a way to get paid). I haven't seen anything that will lead me to believe this is going to be anything but a small minority.
Pirates only want to be able to freely exchange information
So where are the "information wants to be free"-pirates who are hiring people to create content they like? Then they can exchange this information all day long on their terms. Why is it almost always "information" that somebody else paid millions of dollars to create? What is the percentage of 'legit' content to content violating copyright law? A cursory glance at TPB and other sites leads me to believe little to no popular content on those sites is of the legit kind.
Re:i wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
What crap. A TON of pirated content happens to be recent movies, games, music, books, etc. Your argument is intellectually dishonest.
No, it's quite honest. Don't you think the people who hold the copyrights on works released this year will still expect to be paid for copies ten or twenty years from now? Why would they act any differently from the people who hold copyright on works from past decades?
Besides, expecting to be paid today for work I did a year ago, a month ago, or a week ago is no better. It's still an attempt to enforce a contract on someone who wasn't a party to it at the time. I didn't ask Lady Gaga to record "Poker Face", so regardless of whether I listen to it or download it, why would I have any obligation to pay her for that effort?
Content creators invest millions each year into creating new content. A significant proportion of music,movies,etc are never going to become hits. The major incentive to continue pumping out new content is the hope that one of those investments will turn into a hit and pay off. That is the current business model in existence.
Yes, it's a stupid framework that barely qualifies to be called a business model. It's like calling "lottery player" a career. The major incentive to continue buying lottery tickets is the hope that you'll win the jackpot... but you probably won't. Why play the copyright lottery when you could be getting paid directly for creating art?
The incentive of earning a lot of money seems to work in motivating people to create better content.
You know what works just fine as an incentive in every other industry? The incentive of being paid for doing quality work. The best lawyers command a higher rate than the worst lawyers. The best carpenters get more work and get paid more for it. What makes you think artists can't muster up the motivation to do good work without special incentives that involve the rest of us giving up part of our free speech?
So where are the "information wants to be free"-pirates who are hiring people to create content they like?
They're on sites like Sellaband and Kickstarter.
Then they can exchange this information all day long on their terms.
Surely you've noticed that they can already exchange any information all day long on their terms. The question is, will content producers adapt to that reality, or will they remain in denial with a business model that depends on being the sole source of copies?
Re:i wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)
I didn't ask Lady Gaga to record "Poker Face", so regardless of whether I listen to it or download it, why would I have any obligation to pay her for that effort?
I see we're continuing the string of weak arguments. If you are not a consumer of her content, then you are free to ignore her work. Commercial artists record songs to sell them. If you are a consumer then you are expected to pay. You don't live in a vacuum and so as a member of society you can't just walk in and give yourself the right to pirate her work. Feel free to support record labels and artists that operate within an economic model that you agree with. If you don't want to live by the current rules, then be prepared to face the consequences. Society doesn't have to respect whatever rights you give yourself ad-hoc. You can't have it both ways.
You know what works just fine as an incentive in every other industry? The incentive of being paid for doing quality work. The best lawyers command a higher rate than the worst lawyers. The best carpenters get more work and get paid more for it.
And? Since digital content can't be technically stolen, you need copyright law to protect it. How does what you said change anything?
What makes you think artists can't muster up the motivation to do good work without special incentives that involve the rest of us giving up part of our free speech?
I have no clue what "free speech" is doing in this argument. This is about entertainment, not oppression.
Yes, it's a stupid framework that barely qualifies to be called a business model. It's like calling "lottery player" a career. The major incentive to continue buying lottery tickets is the hope that you'll win the jackpot... but you probably won't. Why play the copyright lottery when you could be getting paid directly for creating art?
They're on sites like Sellaband and Kickstarter.
Great. Problem solved then ! You can find like minded people such as yourself and as a group invest in whatever business model you agree with. Encourage new content to be created that isn't encumbered with whatever copyright law you disagree with. Why are you demanding that there shouldn't be a way whereby artists can get compensated by selling their goods and their rights protected through copyright? Surely there can be more than one business model so that it works for everyone?
The question is, will content producers adapt to that reality, or will they remain in denial with a business model that depends on being the sole source of copies?
That is irrelevant. If the current business model is a failure then the companies will die out. Thats how the free market is supposed to work. Why does it matter to you if they content producers stay afloat?