Mininova, an alternative to BitTorrent tracking site The Pirate Bay, loses a key legal battle as a Dutch court rules that the Mininova site will face fines if it does not take action to remove links pointing to copyrighted material from its servers.As The Pirate Bay fights to stay
online, one of its chief rivals has also fallen into the sights of the authorities.
A civil court ordered Dutch
Website Mininova to remove all files on its servers that point to
copyrighted works within three months or face fines. Mininova rivals The Pirate
Bay as an Internet BitTorrent indexing and tracking site, and like its
competitor has been at the center of controversy over the distribution of
copyrighted material.
Following a separate court order, ISP Black
Internet cut service to The Pirate Bay Aug. 24 in the face of possible
fines. However, two days later The Pirate Bay found its way back online.
Despite the controversy, the operators of The Pirate Bay say they are not
backing down.
"Even though large parts of Internets and many old and
famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the IFPI and all the
odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not
flag or fail," said a The Pirate Bay blog post.
In its ruling, the Utrecht District Court took the side of
Stichting BREIN, a Dutch organization representing various copyright-holder
groups. The court accused Mininova of both promoting the violation of
copyrights and profiting from said activity due to advertising on the site.
In a statement, Mininova
founder Erik Dubbelboer said he was disappointed in the court's decision.
"We are obviously not satisfied with this ruling,"
Dubbelboer said. "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 [whether] to appeal this judgment."
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