Just a few days before their court appearance, Mininova, the largest BitTorrent site on the Internet, has started to filter content. The site is using a third party content recognition system that will detect and remove torrent files that link to copyright infringing files.
mininovaStarting today, Mininova will use a content recognition system that detects and removes torrent files linking to copyright infringing files. The system will also prevent the torrents from being re-uploaded to mininova later on.
Mininova co-founder Erik Dubbelboer told TorrentFreak that the content recognition system was selected by the content owners themselves, and that this trial does not mean that the upcoming court case against BREIN is off the table.
Later this month BREIN hopes to convince the court that Mininova has to filter its search results, so that all .torrent files which may point to unauthorized content are removed. Up until now, Mininova refused to interfere with the search results, claiming that the DMCA take-down procedure they have is good enough.
This has clearly changed now. “We hope that this system will make it easier for copyright owners to remove torrents that refer to infringing content from Mininova, while still offering the best platform to our users,” the Mininova team said.
The response from Mininova’s users is mostly negative, with one commenter saying “Shame to see such a nice site decide to go hang itself,” and another adding “Wow, guess you guys are caving under the pressure. Too bad its all over now.”
The effectiveness of this filter, and how it will affect mininova’s popularity is yet to be seen, but it sure is a radical development.
Source: TorrentFreak
