Mininova: Serving Billions of Torrents and Buying Bugattis
Mininova has evolved quite a bit since it has started three years ago. Within a year it was one of the most visited torrent sites on the Internet, and the ever increasing number of users resulted in the 4 billionth torrent download recently. Time to ask some questions.
The Mininova team has always been on top of the latest p2p developments. They recently launched a content distribution platform for independent publishers, a music streaming feature, and in the meanwhile they served billions of torrents. In fact, Mininova celebrated the 4 billionth .torrent download earlier this week.
Contrary to the Pirate Bay guys, however, the people behind Mininova prefer to lay low, and don’t speak out in public very often. We had the chance to do a short Q&A with Niek, one of the co-founders and the CEO of Mininova (yes, it’s a company).
TorrentFreak: Recently you have started to focus more on legal content, that is .torrent files uploaded by approved publishers. What are your plans with the Mininova publisher platform for the future, and will this affect the other .torrent files hosted on Mininova?
Niek: We focus on extending and improving our Content Distribution service. Publishers will see more distribution options (e.g. extensive statistics) in the near future, and users will be able to find featured content easier. Our plan is to offer the most sophisticated and scalable distribution service of the future. Functionality of “regular” torrent files will of course be kept as it is now.
TorrentFreak: The Mininova CD launched in December 2007, how many publishers are releasing their content on Mininova now?
Niek: Over 330 premium publishers are now actively using Mininova to share their content. We receive functionality requests from time to time, but overall they’re very pleased with the CD service.
TorrentFreak: Like any other BitTorrent site, Mininova has to deal with a huge number to DMCA takedown requests from copyright holders. How is your relationship with the people who want you to remove .torrent files from your index?
Niek: I would say that in general the relationship with copyright owners is very good. Our copyright policy is being used by many companies and organizations when necessary. Some copyright owners are so satisfied with our service that they send stuff like collectors editions of their products :)
TorrentFreak: Mininova never had it’s own tracker. Why is this? Don’t you think you have a responsibility to help out the BitTorrent community here, especially now there are only a few reliable BitTorrent trackers out there?
Niek: We discussed this matter from the start. We do run a tracker, but only for Content Distribution purposes. Running an open tracker is not a trivial task, it requires major technical and financial backing. Thus, running such a tracker is currently not an option for us.
TorrentFreak: Mininova is a registered company in the Netherlands. Has 2007 been a good year for the company profit wise?
Niek: I would say this was a pretty nice year. We just bought a Palm Tree island in Dubai (we chose the bottom right leaf, for those who’re interested). I also received my second Bugatti Veyron last week (bonus for the increased Q4 numbers). Oh, and don’t forget to watch MTV Cribs next month to see all this stuff. /sarcasm
TorrentFreak: About the future, where do you see Mininova in 10 years from now? do you think people will still download .torrent files by then?
Niek: Predicting the future is probably one of the most dangerous things to do (remember Bill gates and his 640K?). One thing is for sure: P2P won’t go away anytime soon. We will probably share more files than ever in 10 years, either using an improved version of BitTorrent or a different P2P protocol. We hope that Mininova will stay on top of developments.
TorrentFreak: Thanks for taking the time to talk to TorrentFreak, even though you skipped some questions ;) Is there anything you like to add?
Niek: Thanks to all our users! Especially the 4 billion downloads wouldn’t never been possibly without your support and the great help of our moderating team. TorrentFreak, thank you for your time.
Previously: RIAA Reminds Me of The Mafia, says Musician
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97 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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I applaud Mininova for becoming one of the largest torrent sites on the internet. They have a massive database and huge following. Only time will tell how they will grow, though.
Nice to see Mininova in the news.Nice site, good torrents..used it a bit back in the day..Good on ya guys
Neo wrote:
… But still:
The Pirate bay > Mininova.
well its all good they are no.1
but their not helping as much as they could, (ie) a pub tracker
i like how mininova feels, but tpb has a tracker… cant decide which one i like the best
its easier to find stuff in Mininova then The Pirate bay
fucking retarded title for the article and sarcasm like that is lame
huh? people got up TPB for _possibly_ profiteering from their work and Mininova come out and say they profit it from it very nicely, and nobody cares the slightest bit. wtf?
I’m almost certain that Mininova is lobbying to escape the RIAA.
Someone wrote:
Yeah.. what’s the deal with that? I’m confused also.
guys, calm down, i think they are joking…
Niek = moneymaking douchebag
Indeed, pointless sarcasm and misleading title for article.
Spurge wrote:
Are you american by any chance? Do you two honestly not see that are sarcasm?
IMO they shouldn’t be making excuses for not running their own tracker. He basically said “it costs too much money” and that seems downright silly with all the traffic their site gets.
Matt Oakes wrote:
Why do I always see this arrogant comments meant to demean Americans on every p2p board I come accross? The people of this country have accomplished more then whatever country you live in ever will.
Matt Oakes wrote:
Is there genuinely a need for sarcasm in in the Torrent news?
Yeah, America rules.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
But Australia is the best. Wish I could live there someday.
Alky, quite right, they achieved a lot. They even outrunned Hitler in murdering innocent people during the last 50 years. Maybe you should also spend more time in RL than P2P, then you’ll see, they are quite hated almost everywhere.
Concerning the topic at hand, I invite you, Alky, to provide us an open tracker. It should easily affordable for you considering the rich value of the drool dripping from your big mouth.
yawn
If you want to get busted, Use public Torrent sites LoL
Like: Mininoga - TBP - torrentspy etc
Use private and invite only sites only !
we coming from the
south
side
south
side
south
side
south
side
Alky wrote:
Because you fail to understand and realize the truth!
Any significant thing that has EVER been invented or created in the US has been the doing of someone that has not even been born in the USA. EVER!
All the things you lazy American A-holes are so proud of are in fact made by imigrants.
No “native” American have ever done nothing but leech on the sweat and blood of others.
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