Mininova has made the shock decision today to go legit, deleting all infringing torrents from its index marks, leaving only those which populate its content distribution service.
The BitTorrent site which popped up five years ago, and has been a massive hit with the download crowd, has decided to rid itself of all illegal torrents, after the site lost a legal dispute with Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN.
Content removed
The ruling meant that while Mininova is not responsible for any copyright infringements, it had to remove all torrents linking to copyrighted material within three months, or face a whacking great penalty of up to 5 million euros for linking to the stuff.
Not wanting to pay such a hefty fine, Mininova has rid itself of any links to copyrighted content.
Speaking to TorrentFreak about the news, Mininova co-founder Niek said: "It's very unfortunate that we're forced to take this action, but we saw no other option."
As Mininova was born out of the hole left by Suprnova back in 2004, it's inevitable that another site will take its place soon.
However, with Peter Mandelson in the UK looking to banish all pirated material from the internet, the web seems to be tightening for those looking to get their media for free online.
Read more about the site's demise on its own blog.
Via TorrentFreak
