Mininova Welcomes 1000th Premium Publisher

Written by Ernesto on January 21, 2009 

Everyone can upload torrents to Mininova, but not everyone knows that the site also has a content distribution platform for premium publishers. The service is aimed at indie publishers who want to promote their works to the millions of BitTorrent users, free of charge. Today, Mininova welcomes the 1000th publisher.

mininovaLaunched in 2007, Mininova’s content distribution platform has been growing steadily. Unlike regular uploads, all files on the content distribution platform are both tracked and seeded by Mininova. This ensures high download speeds while the publishers don’t have to worry about seeding the files themselves.

Most of the users of the service have reported great results. BitTorrent has proven to be an ideal marketing tool for musicians, writers and other creative minds who want to promote their work and engage fans. In fact, the Dutch Band ‘Silence is Sexy’ won the Interactive Award 2009 for releasing their album for free on Mininova.

Erik, co-founder of Mininova said in a response to the new milestone: “Content Distribution enables producers and artists to bring their work to the attention of the public, free of charge. It’s the perfect solution for bands that don’t have the means to bring out a record yet.”

“Through content distribution, we have already had about 5,800 uploads and 15 million downloads,” Erik commented. “That means some 40,000 downloads a day. The amount of data that has been downloaded equals a pile of CDs of about 30 kilometers high.”

Aside from the marketing aspect, sharing files on BitTorrent is also a great cost saver. Terabytes of data can be transferred without having to invest thousands of dollars in server capacity. If only Microsoft had used BitTorrent for its Windows 7 Beta release, they would not have been forced to delay the release and annoy thousands of eager early adopters, and could have even saved thousands of dollars at the same time.

Slowly, more established companies are realizing that BitTorrent is indeed a great way to reach out to a wide audience, for a fraction of the costs usually incurred. Last year, Canada’s public television broadcaster CBC used Mininova’s services to distribute one of its TV-shows, after they ran into distribution problems.

With BitTorrent’s ever growing popularity, Mininova is predicting a boom in the number of premium users in the coming year, as well as a steep growth in regular users. It might be a good idea for the entertainment industry to embrace these sites, rather than attempting to take them out.

Previously: Controversy as Google Ads Appear on IsoHunt

Next: Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent

24 Responses

1 Jan 22, 2009 at 00:34 by kenzie

congrats i love mininova, its better than tpb,

2 Jan 22, 2009 at 00:59 by Ghost

Thats just it, the RIAA doesnt understand that all p2p *isnt* piracy. They see it as “Heres a new, upcoming artist. If people download HIS music, they might not buy ours. Lets stop all p2p traffic so we kill two birds with a single courtcase.”

It will take a major company to see the power of bittorrent and use it to release software. Once that happens, and once they complain, the courts will have no choice but to cave. Honestly, I must give props to the RIAA. They are extremly good at making trained law people see one sided stories :

3 Jan 21, 2009 at 23:23 by Andrew

Congrats to Mininova. Its nice to see BitTorrents are being taken seriously as a form of distribution for artists and alike.

http://www.fetchmp3.com

4 Jan 22, 2009 at 00:48 by mister_playboy

Nice to see artists have a path to the public that doesn't involve hoping to be "signed" (into slavery) with a record company.

5 Jan 22, 2009 at 00:49 by Flagg

It's interesting that smaller, independent content producers are embracing BitTorrent. I wonder what will happen when bittorrent becomes a mainstream distribution platform, especially in light of the report that all Canadian ISP's are limiting P2P traffic on their networks… If the Canadians are doing it, it's increasing likely that other countries' ISP's are too. What's going to happen when the demand for P2P bandwidth is coming from bigger companies, with the resources to tackle the ISP's head on?

6 Jan 22, 2009 at 00:52 by Ghost

Wouldnt say "better" because they differ in more ways than one. TPB is more of a rebel in my eyes, always "sticking it to the man" per say. Mininova is like the relaxed little brother who knows hes going to do well, and just spends his time thinking of new ways to embrace sharing.

Theyre both fine by me, although I do use TPB more because I like the color skin better. With Opera I dont see the annoying ads either, so yeah its all good.

I do find myself on Mininova from time to time when I really cant find a certain torrent though.

If you ask me, both sites are needed as Mininova would probably fold under legal pressure if TPB wasnt there to fight for pirates everywhere, likewise many up coming artists wouldnt know about bittorrent if it wasnt for the work Mininova has put into the effort. Both sites are needed, and I really hope they last through '09 (As in, they arnt the one major site shut down, as Ernesto predicted back at new years)

http://bluehumor.org

7 Jan 22, 2009 at 01:02 by everybody

To the detriment of whatever industry wants, which is to discourage independent publishing. It has the potential to break the control that the industry has yet – and that is good, because it weakens the MAFIAA's power.

8 Jan 22, 2009 at 06:59 by dxtr

Yay! Good job Mininova. It's one of my favourite torrent sites. My first torrent experience was through Mininova. Nice to see it grow.
http://stuckinframes.blogspot.com

9 Jan 22, 2009 at 09:02 by tpb fanboy

kenzie, you cant really compare mininova and TPB. one is only a search engine, the other is proper tracker.
Mininova has a tracker, but only for legal stuff (that usually aren't worth the bandwidth)

Ghost seems to have figured it out, hear hear

10 Jan 22, 2009 at 09:06 by M$ hater

even if M$ used bt, i wouldn't share my bandwidth with them to proliferate their crappy software

11 Jan 22, 2009 at 15:27 by NubCakes

What? How are they trying to mislead anyone – they are merely providing a perfectly legal use of their site and Bittorrent.

AFAIK they use their own tracker exclusively for Premium Publishing content meaning it's essentially seperated from user-submitted content.

12 Jan 22, 2009 at 13:54 by Fr.ank.

blah blah blah…. diversionary manoeuvre to mislead the judges…..

13 Jan 22, 2009 at 15:17 by NubCakes

Have the RIAA been active in trying to stop this Publishing Service or something?

And last I looked there was nothing, legally speaking, stopping companies distributing software (Bittorrent was after all concieved of to distribute Linux distros originally). Have the RIAA been trying to shut down Bittorrent itself or something? Last I heard they were not.

14 Jan 22, 2009 at 15:20 by NubCakes

I bet your using Windows right now though :P

15 Jan 22, 2009 at 15:33 by Roze

They could, however, have the ulterior motive of trying to stop BitTorrent by trying to stop BitTorrent websites like Mininova, The Pirate Bay, &c.

16 Jan 22, 2009 at 15:51 by NubCakes

Of course.

17 Jan 22, 2009 at 15:54 by Kademlia

If you got really good content to share for free, we'll do it for free at FrostClick.com
Legal Music downloads usually get over 40k downloads in a week.

18 Jan 23, 2009 at 02:09 by orgs

Mininova sucks ass. I have never downloaded so many fake malware loaded torrents anywhere else.The web page format sucks too … very little info on torrents and no user comments section to warn us of all the bullshit they track

19 Jan 23, 2009 at 02:12 by orgs

Sorry … user comment exists but it's usually just more bullshit

20 Jan 23, 2009 at 12:04 by TerribleTony

Doesn't mean he paid for it or likes it though. :D

21 Jan 23, 2009 at 18:09 by damian

Forget mininova, I have a better website for you!!!

absolutorrent.com – the best torrent website ever!!!

No fake torrents. Every torrent with description and picture. No torrents with 0 seeders.
Absolutorrent selects the best torrents!!!

22 Jan 23, 2009 at 18:12 by damon

Try absolutorrent.com – No fake torrents. Every torrent with description and picture. No torrents with 0 seeders. Absolutorrent selects the best torrents.

23 Jan 23, 2009 at 20:20 by student of man

ok business noobs i read this somewhere and it awfully seems to true ot me.

p2p is not about piracy its about marketing use it like you market a commercial for end products like dvdrs and cdrs.

YOU will be rewarded .

24 Jan 24, 2009 at 15:56 by MusikManiacs

wow! congrats to mininova, they've done a pretty nice job running this site..=)

http://musikmaniacs.blogspot.com

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