Torrent Site Mininova Removes Pirated Materials

Too legit to quit.

Is the age of BitTorrent coming to a critical bend? It certainly seems so, as the PirateBay has taken down its tracker for good, and now we learn that Mininova is going legit.

"Today is an important day in the history of Mininova," the site admins wrote last week in a blog. "From now on, we are limiting Mininova.org to our Content Distribution service. By doing so, we comply with the ruling of the Court of Utrecht of last August."

Mininova is referring to ruling last summer when a judge ordered the site to remove all copyright infringing links within three months or else face up to €5 million in penalties.

"Unfortunately the court ruling leaves us no other option than to take our platform offline, except for the Content Distribution service," the admins wrote.

Interestingly, Mininova launched its Content Distribution service in 2007, which it calls a success. While it hasn’t been a mass market success for mainstream content producers, Mininova names Dutch band Silence is Sexy as one who has released a complete album on the torrent site and received the Interactive Award 2009 for its use of the distribution method.

Despite that, it doesn’t seem that Content Distribution is the sole future business model for Mininova.

"We are still considering an appeal at this moment," the side administrators stated.