Global Gaming Factory’s planned acquisition of The Pirate Bay last summer surprised BitTorrent’s friends and foes alike. But The Pirate Bay was not the only site the company was after. It also put in a massive 20 million euro offer for fellow BitTorrent site Mininova.
For the first time in five years Mininova is about to disappear from the top 10 of most visited torrent sites. This exit is due to a traffic drop that resulted from the removal of most of the site’s torrents following a lost court battle. Newcomer KickassTorrents is still gaining momentum and has already surpassed Mininova in terms of traffic.
A Californian resident of Irvine has plead guilty to sharing ‘The Love Guru’ through BitTorrent. After getting his hands on a leaked copy of the film, the man decided to upload the film to Mininova. The 31 year-old man confessed and agreed to a sentence of three years probation.
This decade witnessed the meteoric rise of BitTorrent, but during the last five years associated sites have endured some of the most aggressive anti-piracy legal action ever seen. The top three BitTorrent sites, after fending off threats for years, all lost in a big way during 2009. But the show ain’t over yet.
Roughly a week ago, Mininova was still the largest torrent site on the Internet, but this quickly changed after the site’s founders removed of millions of torrents to avoid having to pay millions of dollars in fines. In the days that followed, traffic to the site dropped 66%, while the number of daily downloads are less than 4% of what they used to be.
When Mininova announced last week that they would comply with a tough court order, many BitTorrent users feared that this signaled the end of big public torrent sites. In fact, in common with the earlier Grokster decision, the verdict actually lays out clearer ground rules for those running file-sharing services.
When Mininova announced last week that they would comply with a tough court order, many BitTorrent users feared that this signaled the end of big public torrent sites. In fact, in common with the earlier Grokster decision, the verdict actually lays out clearer ground rules for those running file-sharing services.
