Brein / Mininova settlement reached; lawsuit ended
On the August 26th, 2009, the Court of Utrecht (The Netherlands) reached a verdict in the case between anti-piracy organization Brein and Mininova.org. The verdict implied that Mininova has to ensure that users of its torrent platform won’t upload torrent-files if there is reasonable doubt that the actual content contains copyrighted works.
Mininova appealed this verdict at the Court of Amsterdam and Brein prepared a claim for damages on behalf of its members.
Both parties have now reached a settlement. Mininova will abide the verdict of the Court of Utrecht and will withdraw the appeal. In order to settle the matter permanently, Mininova pays Brein an undisclosed amount of money.
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Dutch version:
Op 26 augustus 2009 oordeelde de rechtbank Utrecht in de zaak tussen Brein en Mininova dat Mininova ervoor moet zorgen dat gebruikers van haar torrentplatform geen torrent-links meer aanbieden naar bestanden waarvan gegronde twijfel bestaat of deze geen auteursrechtelijk of nabuurrechtelijk beschermde werken bevatten.
Mininova stelde tegen het vonnis hoger beroep in bij het Gerechtshof in Amsterdam en Brein bereidde een schadeclaim voor namens haar aangeslotenen.
Partijen zijn inmiddels een schikking overeengekomen. Mininova zal zich houden aan het vonnis van de rechtbank Utrecht en het hoger beroep intrekken. Teneinde de zaak definitief te schikken, betaalt Mininova aan Brein een bepaald bedrag, waarvan de hoogte niet door betrokkenen wordt bekend gemaakt.
ViewCave and Mininova Forge Historic Partnership
Today, ViewCave Inc., a new online film distribution company based in California, released its content through Mininova, a well-known peer-to-peer file sharing indexing site. The event is a world-first for a number of reasons. Firstly, most legal content video portals focus on streaming technology and primarily within the US (for Hollywood content, that is). ViewCave, on the other hand, has decided to stream and offer download options in high and low resolutions concurrently from its site as well as torrent files to international audiences both directly and via indexing sites.
Secondly, Mininova is one of the best well known legal torrent download sites in the world. For the first time ever ViewCave has enabled Mininova to offer streaming as well as progressive download options for their content. That means Mininova’s users no longer have to wait hours or days before they can watch their desired movies and video content – they can watch it immediately thanks to ViewCave’s delivery platform.
The win-win relationship allows ViewCave to reach potentially millions of international viewers and Mininova to share in ViewCave’s in-video advertising revenue. Indexing sites do not normally make money from the content that changes hands through their networks, but rather from the ads that are placed on their sites.
Adrian Bertino-Clarke, ViewCave’s CEO comments, “ViewCave is much more than an online entertainment hub. We have two main driving passions: to give independent filmmakers who are having difficulty in getting Studio distribution deals, a flexible and profitable platform to deliver their content to international audiences. And to give people everywhere access to international content without cost and without obtrusive ad breaks. The relationship with Mininova helps us to achieve both goals”.
ViewCave’s unobtrusive ad-supported patent-pending platform is currently in Alpha Release. Its content is viewable in most countries. They have licensed over 200 titles which are being uploaded periodically with more on the way. “Once content owners and advertisers realize the magnitude of what we have created and the reach we have into video consumer networks, the flood gates will be open. In this proposition absolutely everybody wins”, Mr Bertino-Clarke added.
Mininova limits its activities to Content Distribution service
Hi all,
Today is an important day in the history of Mininova. 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.
Unfortunately the court ruling leaves us no other option than to take our platform offline, except for the Content Distribution service. According to the verdict (Dutch link) we have to prevent uploads of torrents to Mininova that refer to certain titles or to similar-looking titles. We’ve been testing some filtering systems the last couple of months, but we found that it’s neither technically nor operationally possible to implement a 100% working filter system. Therefore, we decided that the only option is to limit Mininova to Content Distribution torrents from now on. We are still considering an appeal at this moment.
We launched our Content Distribution service in 2007. This service allows producers and artists to easily publish and distribute their content for free through Mininova. The launch of Content Distribution has proven to be a success. Countless content owners have used Content Distribution to distribute their content (e.g. albums and documentaries) for free to millions of users. For example, the Dutch band Silence is Sexy released their complete album on Mininova and received the Interactive Award 2009 for doing so. The Dutch television broadcaster VPRO decided to start using Content Distribution in 2009 in order to distribute documentaries.
We would like to thank you for your support. Especially everyone that contributed to Mininova receives a big “thank you!” for the effort! We hope to keep welcoming you on Mininova and our other projects (e.g. Snotr, Dispostable).
Thanks! The Mininova staff
Mininova considers appealing in Brein case
Utrecht, August 26th 2009 – Today the Dutch Court of Utrecht ruled that BitTorrent platform Mininova acts unlawful. Mininova considers to appeal this judgment.
The court did not agree with Brein on all demands. Specifically, it ruled that Mininova does not infringe copyright and neighboring rights. The court also found Mininova can not be expected to remove files that are “reasonably likely” refer to infringing material.
Remarkably, the verdict does not give any consideration to the fact that Mininova has developed a content filter for Brein, nor to the cooperation between Mininova and other organizations of rights holders. This surprises Mininova, because it has always stressed the importance of cooperation.
Erik Dubbelboer, co-founder of Mininova: “We are obviously not satisfied with this ruling. The result of this ruling for Mininova is that we have to reevaluate 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. We are considering to appeal this judgment.”
Special HDD deal for Mininova users
Hi everyone,
Most people will probably experience similar problems with storage like us: you never have enough space. You just bought a new hard-drive and within a few weeks you filled it up again.
All this storage — even though it is getting cheaper — is still quite expensive. So we were immediately interested when the guys at Freecom contacted us with a cool offer for our users: 20% discount on the “Freecom Hard Drive XS” series. We think this is a great opportunity for you to get a good hard-drive for little money. The prices listed below are less than in any other place we could find and the drives are shipped worldwide.
The drive itself received very good reviews. It is housed in a special rubber casing which makes it both very quiet (no fan) and provides optimal grip. Since it’s the smallest type of external hard-drive (3.5″) and because of the anti-shock rubber, it’s perfect to carry around or to take to friends to exchange files.
In order to get the 20% off all you need to do is enter the following promo code on the Freecom checkout page:
mininovaxs
- 500 GB / 1 TB / 1.5 TB
- Smallest 3.5″ external hard drive
- Quiet, thanks to fan-less design
- Rubberized enclosure, reducing vibration and providing optimal grip
- Turbo USB 2.0 driver for faster data transfer speeds (Windows only)
- High quality, sleek design (18.2 x 11.4 x 3.1 cm)
- One year manufacturers warranty, free help-desk support
You can choose between 3 sizes:
500 GB – buy now
€79.00 / $99.00 / £74.99
€63.20 / $79.20 / £59.99
1 TB – buy now
€109.00 / $139.00 / £99.98
€87.20 / $111.20 / £79.98
1.5 TB – buy now
€139.00 / $179.00 / £124.99
€111.20 / $143.20 / £99.99
The code will only be active for 2 weeks (till 09-08-2009) or until the drives go out of stock, so make sure you order quickly!
You can order the harddisks by clicking on the product link above.
Cheers,
The Mininova staff
Verdict postponed
Hi all,
Here’s a short update on the ongoing court trial. The judge has postponed the date of the verdict (originally planned July 15) to August 26, due to the summer holiday period.
Please stay tuned for updates!
Thanks, The Mininova staff
Mininova demands rectification report from working group
Hi all,
In January 2008, a working group was installed with the goal to evaluate copyright laws. The working group consists of four members of the Dutch parliament. Two weeks ago, the working group published a report with the name Auteursrechten. Een rapport (’Copyright – a report’). The report includes several recommendations related to reforming copyright laws.
Unfortunately the report includes several factually incorrect assumptions related to Mininova, among which:
- That Mininova refuses to remove torrent files after a complaint has been filed
- That Mininova adds ‘reviews’ to torrent files uploaded by users
- That Mininova pro-actively removes torrents that refer to ‘incorrect content (e.g. porn)’
Besides these factual errors, the report also implies that all torrents on Mininova refer to copyrighted material, that Mininova hosts the content itself, and that Mininova profits from distributing these torrents.
We are very displeased with the fact that the working group didn’t contact us prior to releasing this report, or even took a look at mininova.org. If they had done so, they would’ve seen that we offer a copyright policy service for content owners for years and that we work closely with the content industry.
We demand that the spreading of false information related to Mininova will be stopped. In addition, we demand that the working group removes the name Mininova from the report and places a rectification on the website of the Dutch parliament and in several national newspapers. If these demands are not met, we’ll consider legal steps. To our surprise and nuisance the working group refuses to respond to the essence of the claim, being the factual errors about us and our services.
That’s it for now, stay tuned for updates!
- The Mininova staff
Bruno interview (update)
Hi all,
On July 10, 2009 the movie Brüno will be released in cinemas worldwide. Actor Sacha Baron Cohen (of Ali G and Borat fame) will play yet another funny character – if you liked his previous appearances, you’ll love this one!
Digg Dialogg is doing an interview with Brüno next week, and we will post the interview on June 30 here on Mininova. That’s not all: you can submit your questions to Bruno, and the top rated questions will be asked!
That’s it for now – keep watching Mininova on June 30!
–update–
The interview with Brüno has been published.
Cheers, The Mininova staff
Court trial update
Hi all,
Today was the courtroom seating of our trial with BREIN. It was a very interesting day. The verdict is scheduled for the 15th of July.
Regards,
The Mininova staff
Court trial with BREIN postponed until June 2nd
Hi all,
The upcoming court trial with BREIN, which was planned on Wednesday May 20th, has been postponed until Tuesday June 2nd, at 13:00 hours. The reason for this postponement is solely due to personal circumstances of our attorney and has explicitly nothing to do with the content of the case.
We would like to thank the parties involved for their cooperation in this postponement.
Regards,
The Mininova staff