Bit******* Site Mininova Loses Copyright Ruling

[Monseratto]

After PirateBay.org, another popular ******* search site loses in court...

A Dutch court has ruled against Bit******* archive site *************, and has ordered it to purge its directory of trackers linking to copyrighted files within 30 days or face fines.

The ruling (of which a Google Translate copy may be found here) concludes that the Dutch site tripped up by actively filtering malware from content that its users uploaded, which meant that it had the capability to filter copyrighted content as well.

As a result, the the district court in Utrecht ruled that Mininova will have to remove all infringing tracker files or links to those files, or else pay 1,000 euro per infringing ******* with a maximum of 5 million euros. The Bit******* protocol uses these ******* or tracker files as an index of the file itself, which is compiled from numerous independent members all sharing small portions of it simultaneously.

The ruling against Mininova is the second major blow against file-sharing after a Swedish court ruled against The Pirate Bay, The Pirate Bay then announced its intention to sell itself to Global Gamng Factory X. Meanwhile, the site's contents were itself published in a ******* file, which then resurfaced after the site's ISP was ordered to take the site down.

For its part, Mininova said it was considering an appeal. "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."

Mininova claimed that the ruling said it does not infringe copyright and neighboring rights. In May, the site began filtering copyrighted files. The court also found Mininova can not be expected to remove files that are "reasonably likely" refer to infringing material, the site said.

While that may be literally true, the court also found that Mininova's pledge to purge *******s 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 *******s 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".

As of press time, the site was still hosting *******s of copyrighted files, including a version of "Inglourious Basterds" recorded in a movie theater with a video camera.

The case is also important because, with last year’s death of *******Spy, there are no U.S. ******* trackers even though the U.S. courts have never ruled squarely on the merits whether hosting a Bit******* tracker or index is unlawful

Testing those boundaries is *******, a Canadian index being sued by the Motion Picture Association of America in a Los Angeles federal court. That case has been pending nearly three years. *******, another popular alternative to the The Pirate Bay, removes several hundred listings from its Bit******* index each week upon requests from copyright owners.

The court concluded that Mininova's users contribute to copyright infringement, and that it itself occasionally contributes to copyright infringement

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817...069TX1K0001121