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
Next: Anti-Virus Company Says PeerGuardian is Malware
97 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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
[quote comment="296577"]Nice to see Mininova in the news.Nice site, good torrents..used it quite a bit back in the day andf rom time to time now ..Good on ya guys[/quote]
… 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.
[quote comment="296598"]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?[/quote]
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.
[quote comment="296610"][quote comment="296598"]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?[/quote]
Yeah.. what’s the deal with that? I’m confused also.[/quote]
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.
[quote comment="296628"]
Are you american by any chance? Do you two honestly not see that are sarcasm?[/quote]
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.
[quote comment="296628"][quote comment="296610"][quote comment="296598"]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?[/quote]
Yeah.. what’s the deal with that? I’m confused also.[/quote]
Are you american by any chance? Do you two honestly not see that are sarcasm?[/quote]
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
[quote comment="296631"]
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.[/quote]
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.
@24 - Native American… that’s Indian as in “Cowboys and”… you don’t really want to go there.
What were the questions they skipped?
;)
lol, calm the feck down! its only sarcasm!
ps good interview
pps americans suck
[quote comment="296646"]Is there genuinely a need for sarcasm in in the Torrent news?[/quote]
maybe, when its a fucking interview?
[quote comment="296662"]If you want to get busted, Use public Torrent sites LoL
Like: Mininoga - TBP - torrentspy etc
Use private and invite only sites only ![/quote]
Because private sites are invincible! Oh btw that was sarcasm for everyone that didn’t catch it.
@24
Of course Benjamin Franklin and many other great minds were pompous americans too who didnt invent anything, Right? No. I dont care what you think about the United States but before you say something make sure you dont make yourself look like a freaking retard.
I really hope your from France.
@24
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_inventions
what’s with all this ARGUING?
you must all be AMERICANS
It’s pathetic how we’ve digressed from the main topic to whether or not Americans are stupid. Fact: That’s a stereotype. From the comments it seems like extremely arrogant and ignorant Americans are mostly doing the talking. If one weren’t ignorant they’d recognize the faults America has caused and continues to do, it doesn’t mean that we hate America or Americans but we must recognize these facts rather than try to numb ourselves with lies propagated by the MSM.
Not an American, infact in Sweden and enjoying RIAA free downloading… meaning that even if they are reading this post and have my ip…. KISS MY ASS RIAA PIGS COZ YOU CANT DO SHIT… that said, am getting pretty tired of US bashing and _silly_ remarks like the US has not invented anything.
P2P is about sharing and caring… divided, we fall.
im from US, taking seedmonster.com private with tracker in 30days, Theres your contribution!
I’m not going to get deep into a trivial argument. The bottom line is, we are the most powerfull country in the world, both economically and militarily. We do what we wish, we exert our influence where we see fit, and we don’t give a fuck about what the rest of the world thinks.
This is why America is disliked and/or hated by many and I really could care less.
[quote comment="296648"]Yeah, America rules.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
But Australia is the best. Wish I could live there someday.[/quote]
for reals
I love Mininova, but why does their search engine not recognize separate words? I tried to search for the movie Once, and I got so many hits for cONCErt and beyONCE that I gave up…
I thunk the reason people have such a problem with America is because America pats America’s own back too much. I’m Canadian and we have a huge chip on our shoulder, too, tho’ it’s different than the American chip.
You just don’t hear smaller countries get all up in the grill of other nations, like you hear America do, ALL THE TIME. If you American Citizens who so proudly don’t want to hear other nations citizens point out that your country is a dick, regardless of who invented what, then rein in your OUT OF CONTROL military industrial media monster of a government. OR… stfu.
I am American. I hate our government, but I don’t hate our people. I feel that the American government and it’s actions should not be thought to represent our people as a whole. There is a reason the approval rating of our president is in the toilet. We are seperate from what our government does, and hopefully with the upcoming election, our people can finally be proud of our president and government and its actions. Please don’t take the actions of the American government as the model for the mindset of American citizens. We aren’t dumb, arrogent, etc, any more than any other civilization. All nations have their stereotypes, and usually there is only a miniscule amount of truth to them at most. Please be more respectful with your comments towards people of other nations. Lets all get along… and seed.
great job mininova, keep ahead of the game
i’m glad this turned into a high school social studies class discussion.
You know, after reading that article, I was going to post a message about how gullible RIAA/MPAA members might might believe the section where he brags about how much money they’re making. I was shocked to see that there were readers gullible enough to believe it as well.
Did you not see the “/sarcasm” at the end of that paragraph? Do you not know what sarcasm is? When did the average IQ drop into the single digits?
As for the America bashing; I’m American and I love my country, but hate the current government. That said, anyone who wants to bash America for our lack of significant accomplishments is free to do so, provided that your country has landed a man on the moon.
@40 Eric
Wise words. I’m from Europe have never been in the US, but I too think that people should learn to distinguish a contry’s people from it’s government and companies.
In my opinion the American people seems as mixed as any other country, but the American gov. and the companies that the gov. is a slave to are among the worst in the world.
A lot of Americans like to insult china for example. Their gov. could easily be as “evil” as the American, but at least they are not pussies that dance to private companies whip, and then go out and play the worlds police man to counter their low self esteem.
I dunno.. All this bitching isn’t doing anyone any good..
Maybe i’m getting too old and been doing this shit for too long.
It’s just not the same anymore. What happened to the community we all once had? It’s about sharing, saying thanks for the files, requesting and sharing again.
Like someone mentioned earlier, divided we fall. This is what the RIAA and the like want.
Like I said, maybe i’ve been doing this all too long. Time for filesharing retirement :)
@45 dont take any of these comments to heart it is not a reflection on the torrent community as a whole.
the way i see it is
indexers are like lechers
and trackers are like seeders
all the indexer does is steal other sites .torrent links with some bot which uses up the bandwidth of these other sites trawling every page (leeching.)its great that its all in one place but the site that provided the original content does’nt get any page views, visits, users, which means they get no money for banners and stuff, tbh mininova is a cancer in the BT world.
‘off topic’
the main issue i have with US is there aggressive nature, just look @ “cops” very aggressive policing, and also their aggressive ‘war on oil’ oops i mean war on terror?
What ever happened to torrentspy? I was active user once. I didnt visited it for mounts now. Is it dead or dying or what?
As for mininova, you are THE site for me now. Maybe if you guys could just make comments section on the bottom of the torrent page instead of taking me to the new window.
O well… lots of luck guys :)
“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.”
Because most Americans are American Idol/Gladiator watching mindless drones who delight in shoving hamburgers made from diseased and sick cattle into their obese orifices and showering their tummy with High Fructose Corn Syrup while being lulled into the lie that there are only 2 parties to choose from, the red/blue politics game of corporate cocksuck?
Watch some videos from a truly great American: Bill Hicks, and squeegee your third fuckin eye, you lazy, stupid cattle.
Fuck patriotism.
One world, one people, with only governments and corporations to divide us.
Don’t help them by being a slave to their tactics. Wake the fuck up.
An easy, legal way to search mininova and pirate bay - http://www.PiraBoogle.com
Where did good ol demonoid go :(
17 Feb 24, 2008 at 01:01 by AlkyQuote Alky
Matt Oakes wrote:
Are you american by any chance? Do you two honestly not see that are sarcasm?
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.
U FAT CUNT!WHATTYPE OF STUPID SHIT IS THAT TO SAY?
RIGHYT ON NINJA48!
HICKS IS A HERO!
Meeh who cares if they are making money, Its a fucking good site!
Stop bitching/flaming towards eachother.
There is no reason for it and we are all humans on the same F*cking planet so have some respect for eachother.
Have respect and behave. thx
[quote comment="296631"][quote comment="296628"]
Are you american by any chance? Do you two honestly not see that are sarcasm?[/quote]
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.[/quote]
Stupid, arrogant american.
Yeah, all the “smart” american students coming abroad to study, were gullible enough to believe, that I am from Iran when I told them as a joke, I don’t look like an arab.
By the way, I am from Russia, do any of you Americans speak Russian as well as I do English?
Someone mentioned sending a man to the moon. Ok, how about I mention the first man in space? It’s pointless, this arguing can go on for ever.
I believe Americans are a very superficial people, that’s their culture, not their fault. It becomes a problem when they try to export this to other countries, by force if necessary.
I too, thought for a bit that the guy from mininova meant it.
mininova sucks, another bunch of hypocrite capitalist cocksuckers
NUKE U$A NOW
Im also one that doesn’t see the point of having so many indexing sites, trackers are much more useful and dumpsites just promote leeches in my opinion, as there is no community there.
I think the term ‘dumpsite’ describes them well, they’re just like a big unorganised, messy hole in the ground where .torrent files are dumped for the leechers and H&Rers. No nice release descriptions, no standards, no comments, no community. Just big ad revenue collecting monstrosities.
ok then it’s settled. you guys didn’t stop arguging, so i’m considering you ALL to be american
way to go
Say what you will but if it were not for the USA….you all would be speaking German and not doing any p2p activity.
very cool the interview
I wish I could stab all of you in the face for being stupid.. Unfortunately I don’t know where you live, and I’m not the violent type anyway, so I’ll just go to bed crying over the dumb people in this world..
btw, thanks for the interview..and thank you America for existing.. You’ve made my day, everyday for many years now :P
Europeeins, just a bunch of piss and moaners! God bless the USA, FUCK the rest!!! (except AU, NZ)
<3 Mininova
burp
belch
fart
yawn
excuse me.
[quote comment="296834"]I am American. I hate our government, but I don’t hate our people. I feel that the American government and it’s actions should not be thought to represent our people as a whole. There is a reason the approval rating of our president is in the toilet. We are seperate from what our government does, and hopefully with the upcoming election, our people can finally be proud of our president and government and its actions. Please don’t take the actions of the American government as the model for the mindset of American citizens. We aren’t dumb, arrogent, etc, any more than any other civilization. All nations have their stereotypes, and usually there is only a miniscule amount of truth to them at most. Please be more respectful with your comments towards people of other nations. Lets all get along… and seed.[/quote]
Great words. I’m from Russia, and many people here tink that all Americans are stupid, fat and lazy. And every single person here hates Bush. But I have many people from the USA and thay do not fit in this f*cken stereotype. So I believe that we should not judge people accordin to the stereotypes. All in all, we’re all humans.
[quote comment="297256"][quote comment="296834"]I am American. I hate our government, but I don’t hate our people. I feel that the American government and it’s actions should not be thought to represent our people as a whole. There is a reason the approval rating of our president is in the toilet. We are seperate from what our government does, and hopefully with the upcoming election, our people can finally be proud of our president and government and its actions. Please don’t take the actions of the American government as the model for the mindset of American citizens. We aren’t dumb, arrogent, etc, any more than any other civilization. All nations have their stereotypes, and usually there is only a miniscule amount of truth to them at most. Please be more respectful with your comments towards people of other nations. Lets all get along… and seed.[/quote]
Great words. I’m from Russia, and many people here tink that all Americans are stupid, fat and lazy. And every single person here hates Bush. But I have many people from the USA and thay do not fit in this f*cken stereotype. So I believe that we should not judge people accordin to the stereotypes. All in all, we’re all humans.[/quote]
u said it..i love the American ppl but i despise the politicians they r scum of the earth ..the american ppl r one of the nicest but misled ppl by the damn government which is wreaking havoc all over the globe and due to its shitty policies ppl r hating the americans…
i say we r all humans we just need to get rid of the trashy governments
well its a known fact and 100% a golden rule ..lots of traffic on a site =$$$$
but of course they must deny it to avoid complications..although i don’t see a harm in getting profit if a website such a mininova is doing a gr8 job ..kudos for ya guys
This is Madness!.
grow up people there’s only one world and we all are part of it so don’t talk about americans! you’re on the same world!
This Is Madness!!.
Crazy.. We all have something in common! We all are fileshareres. We should ALL stick together as we all have a common goal.
Who cares what country people are from. We all know that it’s not the people, but the governments that are the problem.
People are the same the world over, and we all need to stick together.
The alternative is more of the same, wars, driven by corporate greed.
It’s up to us. We decide the road to head down.
Now all us Filesharers need to get this country BS out of our heads and get back to the community attitude.
so, LETS SHARE!
looks like some people don’t know what “/sarcasm” means. They were hinting at the allegations that torrent sites (ie TBP) making millions, when everyone knows it is false.
[quote comment="296580"]well its all good they are no.1
but their not helping as much as they could, (ie) a pub tracker[/quote]
QFMFT.
We all love TPB….and mininova
[quote comment="296878"]
the way i see it is
indexers are like lechers
and trackers are like seeders
all the indexer does is steal other sites .torrent links with some bot which uses up the bandwidth of these other sites trawling every page (leeching.)its great that its all in one place but the site that provided the original content does’nt get any page views, visits, users, which means they get no money for banners and stuff, tbh mininova is a cancer in the BT world
[/quote]
mininova does not have an automated indexer system for crawling other sites
all torrents on mininova are uploaded by users and that makes it even more remarkable for an achievement
just shows what can be achieved by a good interface
he has 2 Bugattis?!?!
and an island in Dubai?!?!
the filesharing community can never unite because there are no filesharers in America because in America they are all pirates
not software pirates but romantic swashbuckling historical revolutionary figures with parrots
arrrghhhh
Bluetack and PeerGuardian and SafePeer are crap and nobody should use blocklists because they are crap
arrgghhhh
support piracy support the RIAA support the MPAA arrrghhhhh
Share Files NOt wars
Why on EARTH did you include the sarcasm as a part of the title!? I read it just because I thought the fucker had earned shitloads of cash on that site, and now I know, he doesn’t.
Stupid headline, ppl could start biocotting this site because of that headline, I know I would’ve, if I didn’t read it..
Americans make the BEST movies in the world. So thanks to them for sharing…
First of all, “your” IS NOT “you’re/ you are”.
And without the USA, we’ll all be speaking RUSSIAN and peeing vodka right now.
Regardless of what country a person lives in there will always be assholes. From looking at how the original comment by Matt Oakes at #15 blew up it is easy to see that many of the people here are assholes themselves. I myself posted earlier and did a little demeaning, and for that i am an asshole. Stereotypes about entire countries are worse than some racial stereotypes because it is much more likely that it is wrong. To all those that hate another country because of a certain group of people, keep your opinion to yourself because you make yourself the fool.
[quote comment="296583"]i like how mininova feels, but tpb has a tracker… cant decide which one i like the best[/quote]
[quote]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 :)
Pirate Bay: “…..but it’s simpler to just say: 0 torrents has been removed, and 0 torrents will ever be removed.”[/quote]
Oh, I don’t know. I find the choice rather easy. One prefers to bend the knee and one refuses to bend the knee. Or bend over.
Yarrr!
We are very excited to announce that the Global job search engine has been released!
perfectsea.comis the first website that includes all jobs related to a lot of countries that speak English.
There are over 8 countries and/or areas jobs on PerfectSea.com. It searches over thousands job sites and provide millions jobs to our customers.
We use total automatic Robot technology to collect tons information from website, do analysis. So perfectsea.com provides the unique job search environment to our customers, let
them have a place to search all jobs in the world. This is one site solution.
Let people just come to one website and search the job, whatever where the job is, what kind of job the user wants.
Job seeker can get great benefits from it. People don’t need to go to different website for looking for job. This is one stop solution.
Perfectsea.com will change the way people looking for the job
83 stop spamming. I got a head ache just looking at your comment.
Yaargh, americans sucks me wooden leg.
This interview failled to mention the fact that mininova used to be third or forth most popular.After the dead of torrentspy and demonoid ( RIP ) the crowd moved to mininova,and there’s your new number one.
Nice to see how this thing got back at “pissing of the yank” again,but frankly, I think that’s to easy.
Give those poor bastards a break,wil you ? It’s not easy for them,retard for a president,dollar is down and ching chong china is the new leader in the world.
So,I think, lets be nice to the yank and remember the times when USA really ment something good.
cheers,
-the Queef-
fact:americans waste the most oil among developed nations,using less eficient cars/suvs when there’s no need to…
fact:americans says they’re opposed to “war for oil”…
WoW, Mininova owner has their own island in Dubai AND 2 Bugattis?!
I think I might start an torrent site and become a ‘torrent freak’
LOL XD
I wonder if people really are stupid enough to not get the “/sarcasm” remark… :]
Anyway, nice to see Niek / Mininova in the spotlight again :)
Cheers from us at EZTV.
if you kill the bush clan, the world will love america again.
In fact, Mininova celebrated the 4 billionth .torrent download earlier this week………..
when you get the .torrent file that’s nothing. you have to download the content and continue spreading it. mininova, try to count the finished downloads !
America is the current and LAST world power according to Bible prophecy. True they are the self-appointed rulers who try to impose their will on all others. That’s not in dispute, it’s just the facts. It doesn’t make them “better” than anyone else or mean they can’t be conquered. Far from it. They exist because they invaded the large country of America and filled it by sheer number of immigrants, mainly from England and Europe. So what if they were originally the Anglo-American world power and got all their ideas and inventions from others? There are also many Americans who have done great things, and not all of them are arrogant. They also have developed and excelled in many fields of endeavor. Are the people in general smarter or stronger than anyone else? No, not at all.
The govt must be the most corrupt on Earth, and it’s sins are too numerous to mention, but that’s not the fault of the people. Every nation has good and bad individuals, and I don’t know of any which doesn’t have both types, with many shades in between.
There’s many great things happening in this world that most don’t even know about and will never see on the News. The world IS going to get better, but that will involve eliminating all the problems.
[quote comment="297669"]he has 2 Bugattis?!?!
and an island in Dubai?!?![/quote]
Even if he did have these things (which due to his sarcasm and the way the site works, obviously not) I would wish him all the best. I get all my files from mininova for free so why should I begrudge any profit? its not as if I have to pay them anything is it?
It seemed to me running trackers was one of Suprnovas biggest hurdles.
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