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Mininova Removes All Copyright-Infringing Torrents

Posted by Soulskill on 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."

68 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. Debate! by headkase · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is obviously an issue with regards to copyright in our society. Millions and more are sharing all the time. This points the finger at the issue being systemic. We need to educate people to enable a wider debate. That is the only thing that will lead to fair change. Piracy is not the answer. There is a place for copyright that is not todays distorted parameters. Boycotting in the mean time is the answer, however, unless boycotting is whipped into shape it is also not the answer. Debate! Educate your friends and family it is a small start but it is the only way.

    --
    Shh.
    1. Re:Debate! by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The whole thing smells more and more like the old P&P RPG Paranoia. Everyone hates secret societies, everyone hates mutants, yet everyone is a mutant in a secret society.

      I worked for our version of the RIAA for a while (I didn't mean to, they were part of the bundle of companies I had to support). My moment of "wtf" came when one of their lawyers approached me and asked if I knew anything about flashing a Nintendo DS for their kids so they can play copies.

      My answer was "since you're suing people who know aynthing about flashing Nintendos or even do it, my answer has to be no". This is when he offered money...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Debate! by Krneki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Pandora box was open a long time ago and since then the piracy has become more and more mainstream. Since the dawn of the net it has never, ever had a setback longer then a week, hell will freeze over before the piracy will see a decline.

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
    3. Re:Debate! by headkase · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That shows a lack of principle. We are all fallible, I'm petty and arrogant all the time - especially here ;) - but if we want to improve our lot as a whole education is the only answer. It may be too late for us cynical and jaded adults but perhaps we can try an experiment with our children. Teach them to be responsible citizens. Start with restoring an actual functioning public domain. Then teach copyright obligations in civics classes to primary school students. It will never be easy as we all want what is best for us. But, collectively, we have to have room for compromise or we will all get nothing.

      --
      Shh.
    4. Re:Debate! by ivoras · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There is obviously an issue with regards to copyright in our society. Millions and more are sharing all the time. This points the finger at the issue being systemic.

      I'd rather look at the cause of this "issue" - i.e. *why* does it exist. And I'll offer an answer - because it is harder and harder to get rich quickly while staying legal. The fact that I download movies all the time didn't influence my moviegoing one bit - I still go out to the movies every week or two because of the experience and the company of friends - both of which suck over DIVX. My problem is that there usually isn't anything good out there to see. Some nights, we don't remember what we watched around 5 minutes after leaving the cinema! I doubt the problem is with a lack of quality writers or actors or directors - I think most of it comes from producers and other financiers trying to cram in special effects, political correctness and crowd-pleasing stories (especially endings) to try to maximize the profits, like art can be expressed by equations. I don't feel one bit bad about downloading "2012" but I watched Inglorious Basterds and Watchmen twice (just a recent example) and I have a hefty collection of (legal, bought) DVDs of good films and TV shows. My point is that that a significant part of the piracy issue (not all of it!) is the direct result of the fall in quality and resorting to formulaic "this script equals this much $$$" thinking on the part of producers.

      I'm sure the same thing goes for music.

      One other large thing is convenience - sometimes people just don't feel like going to the movies and it's easier to download the film right now and watch it than waiting months for it to come on DVDs, etc. It is human nature - the baby wants what it wants. There are surely more problems, but I have a feeling these two combined are the cause of over 50% of the piracy issues. Heck, solve the distribution issue (make it cheap and easy and at the same time worldwide as the cinema releases) and I'd bet that 40% of all piracy would simply disappear over night.

      --
      -- Sig down
    5. Re:Debate! by headkase · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I am doing something. See my signature. And I actually don't have anything to lose so I'm choosing to stick it to the man because I can. People can force change through virtue all that is needed is the appropriate vehicle. Slashdot almost gets there, see my signature for a vehicle-in-progress that would allow you to say fuck you in as neutral a setting as possible. Organization is the key. Individually we are relatively intelligent, collectively we are a juggernaut. All we need is the mechanism to arrive at fair truth. What policy maker will risk flying in the face of that? They'd be taken to the nearest tree and hanged. Figuratively of course, we are a democracy.

      --
      Shh.
    6. Re:Debate! by gnasher719 · · Score: 2, 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.

    7. Re:Debate! by masmullin · · Score: 5, Informative

      That was sort of dumb of you. The answer to ANY request an RIAA person has for you is "no"... not some big shpeel about "how you sue people who know stuff". Just say No and be done with it.

      Eg.
      Q:Could you help me flash my NintendoDS?
      A:No

      Q:Could you find me the latest cd on thepiratebay?
      A:No

      Q:Could you grab me a coke?
      A:No

      Q:Could you call 911 since I am about to go into cardiac arrest?
      A:No

      Q:Could you stop aliens from kidnapping my children?
      A:No

      Q:Could you give me the time of day?
      A:No

      See, its easy.

    8. Re:Debate! by headkase · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You have hit the nail right on the head. Industry in the form of the RIAA and MPAA is not meeting the needs of their customers. I want to download all my movies with none of that idiotic DRM, I want a public domain so that others can pick up the ball and continue where the current holder doesn't, I want many more things as well. But RIAA and MPAA members only want one thing: money. How they get it is control and they are playing a maximization game. What they fail to realize is that there are other agents out there and they have pissed some of us off. They shouldn't have pissed me off because I have nothing better to do than snipe at them all day all over the web wherever appropriate.

      --
      Shh.
    9. Re:Debate! by Anonymous Coward · · 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."

    10. Re:Debate! by icebraining · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      Dilbert RSS feed
    11. Re:Debate! by MachDelta · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Q:Could you call 911 since I am about to go into cardiac arrest?
      A:No

      Depending on where you live, that answer may technically be illegal. Plenty of countries and a few states (oh and Quebec too) have a "Duty to rescue" law which, in a nutshell, states that you must attempt to assist an individual in peril provided that it doesn't also put your life at risk. At the very least, you would be expected to call for help.

      It's all semantics though. I can't imagine any decent human being simply standing there and watching while another human has a heart attack, no matter who they work for.

    12. Re:Debate! by Znork · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There is a place for copyright

      I used to think that, but I don't any more. Any monopolies handed out by the government and whose cost is borne by the public and the distributed economy will be treated as of interest for the receiving stakeholders only, and thus will permanently expand as the paying parties will not be represented in discussions around the issue. See the claims about IP jobs 'lost' to piracy, yet where are the discussions about jobs among plumbers, pizzamakers or other branches of the economy when copyright shifts money and resources from one part of the economy to the other? Are those branches represented when it's arbitrarily decided that they should be deprived of resources in favour of media industries? Copyright creates no resources, it merely redistributes them.

      So no, there is no place for copyright. Any honest industry or creators support scheme requires that it be managed within the normal budget of governments and, like any other redistribution scheme, have its benefits weighed against its costs, and accounted for to the public. No other government scheme has anywhere close to as bad efficiency of copyright; if any other program had less than 5% of funding going to the actual intended beneficiaries there'd be an uproar.

      That's not to say there can't be reasonable schemes for encouraging creativity; the easiest would simply be mandatory licensing which dispenses of any contracts no matter what outlet or reproduction, and simply requires a percentage (50-75%, for example) of any revenue derived from the copying to be paid to the creators (via a public agency, such as the IRS, not through private entities like in radio, and modulated by policy). Then it would also be easy to manage reasonable cost/benefit levels (should there be a ceiling on payouts and the rest spread along the long tail to encourage more production, for example, how many years of payout is the optimum to keep creative material flowing, etc).

      Boycotting is not enough, the corrosive effect of corruption on politics is too strong, and politically it's only used to claim that anyone boycotting is pirating anyway. But it's certainly a right thing to do; paying for anything from the RIAA/MPAA corps means supporting the type of corruption going on as ACTA and other back-room deals, which I find utterly unacceptable by now.

    13. Re:Debate! by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Let's see.

      Imagine that other human being destroyed your life and put you in prison for five years.

      How about, your children were sexually abused while in child protective services and one committed suicide.

      Of course, if the law requires that I go get help, I'd have

      to

      go
      .
      .
      .
      get
      .
      .
      .
      help
      .
      .
      .
      as
      .
      .
      fast
      .
      .
      .
      .
      as
      .
      .
      .
      .
      possible.

      I've done the non-vengeance thing and I've done the vengeance thing and let me tell you, vengeance was damn sweet and I have no regrets. It's the only thing that made me smile now and then for a couple years while I recovered back to human.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    14. Re:Debate! by Opportunist · · Score: 2, 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.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    15. Re:Debate! by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Funny

      I thought that duty to rescue only applies to fellow humans and not RIAA lawyers?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    16. Re:Debate! by headkase · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I tend to agree, but, I'm willing to make a deal. Give me a fair term before public domain takes effect and in return I will accept a limited term of copyright. Not todays term which is effectively forever when compared to an individuals life-span.

      --
      Shh.
    17. Re:Debate! by headkase · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'll give you some background. Where I live, Newfoundland, Canada, there is a province wide radio station: same broadcast for everyone. They have a 1-800 number you can call into. It is a debating forum at heart, it is called Open Line. It has a very balanced and intelligent moderator running the show for people to engage with. It is insanely popular here. Everyone listens to it and enough people call into it that it has built its own momentum for issues of the day. People call in and address what pisses them off. Politicians also call in all the time when they get sniped to refute or otherwise manage the issue. When a politician, or policy maker, calls they are put right through to address the issue. Everyone else gets in a queue but eventually does get their say (1-800 number..). This program enables a feedback mechanism that works extremely well here. Perhaps our history and culture explains how it came to be established. In the 1990's our primary industry, fishing, collapsed as the stocks were not properly managed from a government and citizen perspective. This sowed the seeds of doubt and lead people to question authority. As the inertia grew more people jumped on the band-wagon. As a result now that this singular institution is established in our culture our government functions better because of it. This is a lesson that can be drawn from us. It deserves to be shamelessly copied, my signature proposes implementing it on the web. I'm not a good mechanic however so I am asking for your help - please add your opinion to it.

      --
      Shh.
    18. Re:Debate! by geminidomino · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not everywhere in the US. In Pennsylvania, for example, "Depraved Indifference" can be tantamount to "involuntary manslaughter."

       

    19. Re:Debate! by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 5, Funny

      If more people learned the power of saying "no" the world would be a better place.

      No

    20. Re:Debate! by Have+Brain+Will+Rent · · Score: 4, Funny

      In the 1990's our primary industry, fishing, collapsed as the stocks were not properly managed from a government and citizen perspective.

      Not to mention from the perspective of the fish!

      --
      The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
    21. Re:Debate! by bzipitidoo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We should replace copyrights and patents with some other system. Reforming it by measures such as reducing monopoly lengths to sane amounts, reducing the scope of the monopolies, and spelling out what can be copyrighted doesn't go far enough. The entire notion of owning an idea is fundamentally flawed. As long as there is a legal foundation that supports this inherently ridiculous notion, vested interests will continually seek to expand it, and engage in rent seeking, and destructive actions such as threats, actual lawsuits, gaming of the justice system, lobbying against the public interest, blackmail, barratry, suppression, deliberate crippling of devices, and censorship. And insincere advertising and publicity campaigns that play us for suckers over "fairness" for the poor starving inventors and artists. Such arguments are like debating health care for slaves, without getting to the meat of that issue, that slavery should not exist. "If you don't buy enough cotton, our slaves will go hungry!" Do note that I favor the continued existence of trademarks, and oppose plagiarism.

      The existence of intellectual property laws distorts more than markets, it warps how society thinks. Ideas are incredibly overvalued, and people behave idiotically over the matter, keeping "valuable" info secret, and engaging in mad scrambles to stake out territory, as if clear lines can be drawn around an idea, as if any idea could be independent of all other ideas, and for fear of somehow losing out. It's an ongoing land rush like Oklahoma had when it was first opened, only there is no land to be grabbed, and no turf to defend but for the artificial turf created by the legal system, and no possible way to stop trespassing whether deliberate or accidental, or even know where the lines are, and so whether a trespass has occurred. When it must be figured out, has to be done on a case by case basis with long, expensive court battles, and even that process often gets it wrong. And it's tough to debate when some people refuse even to be civil about it and instantly scream "socialism" or "communism" as if copyrights and patents were the only possible way to handle art and science in a capitalist system. Removing all basis would, I feel, be the only way to really resolve things once and for all. An example of warped thinking was an experience I had with a collectible card game. At a tournament, I attempted to use proxies. I did indeed have the actual cards, but the other players still objected. Why? I wish I'd buttonholed a few of them and pinned them against the wall until they could elucidate just exactly why, but the most coherent objection I heard was that if they allowed the proxies it would somehow made their collection of real cards less valuable. I suspect some didn't really object in principle, they were simply seizing upon it as a pretext to cause me difficulties in hopes of improving their changes against me, perhaps by forcing me to play without the proxies. No one would object to home made chess pieces on such grounds, why the fuss over the collectible cards?

      The details of the replacement system would have to be worked out, but the basic idea is, in a word, Patronage. Centuries ago there were no intellectual property laws, and we nevertheless advanced. We might not want to return to that state of affairs, we might wish to encourage art and science more than they are already inherently encouraged-- an useful invention is its own reward, in proportion to its usefulness-- and so want some system to achieve that, but in a more inclusive, open way that cannot be so easily turned against its purpose or misused for entirely unrelated purposes, as has happened with the current messy system. Remember that the patent system at the least is intended to be a bargain in which the inventor goes public in exchange for compensation, which, unfortunately, takes the form of protection from competition. A deal that gives inventors incentive to publish is good, but it is not so valuable that we should cripple ourselves to secure it. Patents are like offering to sell your left foot to buy a shoe.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  2. Another site will replace it. by purpledinoz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mininova replaced Suprnova, and Mininova will be replaced by another site. It's like playing whack-a-mole, except there are 1000 moles and 1 hammer.

    1. Re:Another site will replace it. by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know, quality of (public) torrent sites has been on the decline for a while. Now with demonoid still down, mininova dead and the piratebay in limbo what will replace them ? This feels like after Napster when the last of the replacements like audiogalaxy were running out of steam.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    2. Re:Another site will replace it. by antdude · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Now that TPB and Miniova are no longer cool. What good public sites are left these days?

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    3. Re:Another site will replace it. by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · 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.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
    4. Re:Another site will replace it. by just_a_monkey · · Score: 3, Funny

      Good one, narc. ;-)

      --
      How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
    5. Re:Another site will replace it. by nstlgc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You must be looking at another Internet than I am sir.

      --
      I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
    6. Re:Another site will replace it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Mininova replaced Suprnova, and Mininova will be replaced by another site. It's like playing whack-a-mole, except there are 1000 moles and 1 hammer.

      Next up: Moderatelysizednova.

    7. Re:Another site will replace it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      torrentz.com

    8. Re:Another site will replace it. by ShooterNeo · · Score: 2, 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.

    9. Re:Another site will replace it. by martin-boundary · · Score: 2, Insightful
      You're a glass half empty kind of guy, right? Here's another take on the exact same circle of ideas:

      The internet is actually a smaller place than most people think.

      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).

      Throw out as many platitudes as you like, but the RIAA et al are putting the bittorrent genie back in the bottle.

      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.

  3. This may kill their CDN by Guspaz · · Score: 4, 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.

  4. This is great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's always annoying to have loads of stolen software music and films come up when I am searching for a torrent.
    Having mininova get rid of all the illigal stuff will make it much easier and more pleasant to use. Legitimate stuff gets buried as there is so much more stolen stuff.

    I hope other torrent sites follow suit, even just for the ease of use reasons.

  5. At least the judge is sane by T+Murphy · · 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.

    --
    My webcomic
  6. Not too sorry to see Mininova die by Chris+Tucker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Mininova included far too many torrents on private trackers. Sort of defeating the purpose of BitTorrent, actually.

    No great loss, all things considered.

    --
    Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
    1. Re:Not too sorry to see Mininova die by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree in principle, but in practice things tend to be less elegant. I expect to see an increase of private trackers, because their hosts will not be the huge, tempting targets that Mininova and TPB were. This means that we'll all join exclusive, secret societies online and share files that way. It's not more egalitarian, etc., but it's probably more sustainable and seems more like a bunch of overlapping communities, which is sort of nice.

  7. Same droppings, different pile by tepples · · Score: 4, 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.

    1. Re:Same droppings, different pile by PizzaAnalogyGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yep, RIAA/MPAA have their fingers everywhere. The only reasonable anti-piracy entity is BSA which mostly just goes against piracy sellers and those who use pirated apps in corporations/work.

      Let me tell you a true story from real life.

      While traveling the endless lands of The Barrens and sipping my Mountain Dew drink with ices, I remembered a note my mother left for me in my childhood. It was on the fridge door, with a lovely heart magnet on top of it. I read the note and it said she'll be late home today and she had left me a good salad to eat in the fridge. But that is bad food. I didn't want to eat bad food. I wanted a PIZZA. But I was scared. I truly was. It was the first time I had to go against an authority and it was the first time I had to make a tough decision myself - what kind of a pizza to order. I went to Google and typed in "pizza". There was a nice lady that asked from me what kind of a pizza I would like to have. I just mumbled something along the lines of.. Sliced ham, bacon, pineapple and roasted red peppers with provolone cheese on a parmesan crust.. Family size, pan pizza! And one Mountain Dew. And some chocolate ice cream with strawberries! She said "I'll be there in 20 mins". I felt like a man and went back to my computer.

      The thing I'm trying to say here is that whatever they will try, someone will get around it and do what he wants. So did I.

  8. "search item" type:torrent by Anonymous Coward · · 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 :)

  9. Re:i wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Bah. Remember Suprnova? It is only a matter of time until something else replaces it.

  10. Another site already replaced it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    kickasstorrents.com

  11. Re:i wonder... by sopssa · · Score: 4, 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?

  12. Oh no! What will I do? by DJCouchyCouch · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mininova is gone!

    If only there'd be some kind of alternative! I guess I'll just have to rely on sumotorrent, btjunkie, eztv, fenopy, isohunt, seedpeer, torrentz, torrentbox, torrentdownloads.net, torrent portal, torrentreactor.net, torrentreactor.to, alivetorrents, demonoid, boxtorrent, animelab, animesuki, kickasstorrents, torrentplaza, movietorrents, torrentomega, flixflux, overget, superfundo and all the other sites I can easily find on google by doing a simple search.

    I hope I'll be able to survive!

    1. Re:Oh no! What will I do? by Krneki · · Score: 5, Informative

      You forgot Google with file:torrent.

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
    2. Re:Oh no! What will I do? by everynerd · · Score: 2, Informative

      Demonoid site is down, but the trackers have been revived.

    3. Re:Oh no! What will I do? by Pteraspidomorphi · · Score: 2, Informative

      box is now called bakabt. animesuki is only a meta-index, but look into scarywater or nyaatorrents. I hope that helps with your survival ;)

  13. Re:Well, dang. by tepples · · Score: 3, Funny

    Where do those of us looking for not-legally avaliable stuff, like dubbed anime go now?

    You could always go teach English in Japan.

  14. Typo in summary by dvh.tosomja · · Score: 2, Funny

    > Mininova Removes All Copyright-Infringing Torrents

    Mininova Removes All Torrents ...Here, fixed that for ya

  15. I'm curious... by naasking · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...how can Mininova not be liable for any copyright infringing links, but still be ordered to remove the links? If they're not liable for that content, then they shouldn't have to remove anything.

    --
    Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
  16. and as usual... by v1 · · 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...

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  17. Re:Whack-A-Mole by infolation · · Score: 2, Funny

    Demonoid, when it returns from the ashes.

  18. Not all bad by orkysoft · · 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.

    --

    I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
  19. Not necessarily by Mathinker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > But, collectively, we have to have room for compromise or we will all get nothing.

    I can think of a lot of futures where this is not true.

    For example, the future where copyright law is unchanged, infringement is rampant and unenforceable, and the content industry merely has to scale down because of lowered profits.

    Or the future where the content industry pushes copyright law so out of whack that no one infringes, but their profits are just as lowered because many people are so afraid of the possible penalties they totally avoid buying their products and instead go for the safe indie products which have CC/alternative licensing and/or viewing the content only in ephemeral ways (like on television or a movie screen).

    BTW, when I finished school I was a model "responsible citizen" in that I would never have thought to break any laws. Now that I am an adult, I see that the simplistic "law == morality" equivalence is far from being correct. So you might have a big problem in your plans, there, eh?

  20. Re:i wonder... by click2005 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1,320,433 according to Google's cache.

    --
    I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
  21. Time to move to Freenet... by FreenetFan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Freenet is where the next generation of filesharing will happen. It's working very well at the moment, Speeds are pretty good and there is a lot of content. Files of 1GB can be easily downloaded in a day, just queue them up. And of course there is a lot of chat on the forums, just like Usenet used to be.

    It is a lot more user friendly than it used to be, although the Slashdot crowd are the kind of people who will be the early adopters.

    1. Re:Time to move to Freenet... by FlyingGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It will work, for a while.

      Then it will suffer that same fate as usenet did with massive amounts of spam and drive the coasts of keeping it up and running until it collapses under it's own weight, much like usenet did.

      Distributed systems work well when they are controlled or at least carefully health monitored.

      Bandwidth isn't free and never will be and so someone or some group of people must bear the costs and at some point it will be like usenet and become prohibitively expensive because you are not just moving text ( as was initially envisioned by usenet ( with some minor binary file movement ) you are moving massive amounts of data in the form of large binaries..

      As long as Freenet stays in the background noise it will survive, after that it will be shutdown, not by any central authority, but by the users themselves.

      If TPB had been quiet, under the radar ( picked a different name ) and not been thumbing their noses at the rest of the world they might still be there.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    2. Re:Time to move to Freenet... by FreenetFan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Freenet has already thought of those problems you describe!

      Usenet was fairly centralized, but Freenet works in a similar way to Bittorrents in that the more people that use it, the faster it goes. And it is totally decentralized so there are no costs other than your computer and internet connection, which you have already. You can configure how much bandwidth to allocate to Freenet, and it doesn't require excessive amounts.

      And there are spam-resistant forums on Freenet. Instead of messages going to a central place, users publish their own messages to their own place, and other users pick them up from there. So if someone spams, you just don't bother picking up their messages. There is also a web of trust so spammers can be identified collaboratively rather than each person having to flag spammers separately. There are some extra tricks to speed it up and enable it to scale, but it seems to work pretty well in practice.

      Freenet's old message forum (Frost) is spammable, but the new ones are called Freenet Message System (FMS) and Freetalk, and they are highly spam resistant.

      Freenet is designed from the ground up to assume a minority of its users will be malicious, and takes steps to allow for that. Data flows around in encrypted chunks of 32kB and these could be small messages or large binaries. You really should try out Freenet, it covers all the objections you made.

      The only real threat to Freenet is a legal one, of governments making it illegal or blocking its traffic. But even then it has a Darknet mode, where you only connect to trusted friends, and the UDP traffic is designed to be difficult to fingerprint. If it comes to it, the next step would be steganography, where Freenet traffic is disguised as some other form of traffic.

  22. Um what? by Alarindris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your idea is retarded and will never work.

    LeTS JuST GIvE iT aWAY FoR FREE!!! LOLOLOLO!!! THATS THE ANSWER!!

  23. Tip of the iceberg by Mathinker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You've made a good start, but forgotten all the rest of the bad things of copyright law.

    • Ridiculous statutory damages.
    • Fair use is relatively useless because its boundaries are only prescribed by the courts, not by copyright law itself. The law itself should clearly define a "safe" area for fair use of various types of works (but not limit fair use to that definition, only).
    • It is impossible to check if what you think is an original creation is actually just a derived work, since there are no registration requirements for copyrighted works. If your creation turns out to be a derived work, you shouldn't be liable for unreasonable damages.
    • Currently accepted usage of most copyrighted works requires copying them (to various players/devices, between locations within your house, to offsite backup) yet this copying is actually illegal (since copyright law was designed in an era when copying was difficult and blatantly infringing).
    • Copyright law varies widely from country to country but the net is international in nature.
    • Copyright law has expanded to restrict and criminalize behavior which only enables others to infringe on copyright, and the extent of this expansion is only defined by the courts, enabling litigation-happy companies to effectively extort money from a section of the public which they would struggle to actually prove guilty. But lack of due diligence in pursuing copyright claims is not effectively punished.
  24. Re:i wonder... by Cheapy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Pirates already have an entitlement complex. Why would they want to do stuff for the sites they are using?

    --
    Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
  25. Let me get my video camera... by TiggertheMad · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can't imagine any decent human being simply standing there and watching while another human has a heart attack, no matter who they work for.

    You called that one, I sure couldn't just stand there and watch. I mean, how often do you get a chance to kick a RIAA person WHILE they are having a heart attack?

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
  26. Re:i wonder... by Mr2001 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Pirates already have an entitlement complex.

    No, you've got it backwards.

    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. They think one big hit entitles them to a free ride for the rest of their lives, and they think they're entitled to tell everyone else what they can or can't do with their own property.

    Pirates only want to be able to freely exchange information. The only "entitlement" a pirate feels is the right to communicate. Pirates don't expect other people to change their behavior to benefit pirates; copyright holders do expect other people to change their behavior to benefit copyright holders.

    --
    Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
  27. Re:i wonder... by 0ld_d0g · · 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.

  28. Re:Hard to find good music by Sirusjr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thats the problem, they don't have any good way to try before you buy. Best thing I get is 20 second samples in TERRIBLE quality on amazon. That isn't going to give me a very good idea what I want. Plus I don't even get samples when importing from Japan but of course you didn't even bother to address my main points.

  29. Re:i wonder... by Mr2001 · · 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?

    --
    Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
  30. Re:i wonder... by 0ld_d0g · · 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?

  31. Did I miss something? by firesyde424 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If the judge has ruled that Mininova did not violate any laws, how does he have the legal foundation to order them to enforce a law that they have not broken?