August 26th, 2009
Another torrent site slapped down
Scandinavian courts continue their smackdown of torrent sites. PC Mag reports that a Dutch court has given Mininova.org 30 days to clean the site of trackers linked to copyrighted files.
The problem with Mininova’s case was evidence that moderators actively filtered and purged malware disguised as movie or TV show files. That, the court found, showed Mininova could have filtered for copyrighted content but made no effort to do so.
The court found that Mininova’s pledge to purge torrents that contain or link to malware also demonstrated a capability to filter content. Seaprately, the court said it was convinced by a study conducted by BREIN, the rights organization that brought the suit, that between 80 to 90 percent of all torrents archived on the site linked to copyrighted material. That conclusion was compounded by the fact that the site also included categories such as “Movies” and “TV Shows,” as well as “Disney”.
Mininova wants to appeal. Good luck with that.
“We are obviously not satisfied with this ruling,” Eric Dubbelboer, the co-founder of Mininova, said in a statement. “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.”
