Hey all, good news!
In December last year we blogged that “mininova” turned out to be the 9th most Googled word. We wrote back then:
It’s good to see our site between the top-10 most popular search terms, but it probably also means the homepage of Mininova is not very trivial to find. We promise you we’re going to work on this issue next year!
One of the main reasons that so many people search on Google for Mininova, is that we use the “.org” TLD instead of the (more common) “.com”. So why not simply register Mininova.com?
The problem was that this domain was already registered by a scammer. This person was using the domain to trick people into paying money (up to 100$) to access our website. This technique is usually refered to as phishing. As a result, we received hundreds of emails from people who submitted their credit card information to this scammer.
Fortunately that’s all over now. In January, we hired the law firm Traverse Legal and started a domain dispute against “Atlas Protecta Co. Ltd.”, which is an alias used by the scammer. The decision came out a few days ago, and can be read here.
The arbiter judged that our three assertions were valid:
- The domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights; and
- Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
- The domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
To put a long story short, Mininova.com is now ours and redirects to the “.org” site 
A short note to the people who lost money to the scammer: please contact your local bank and ask for a refund of the credited amount of money.
Woo! That is great! I myself had originally been told, ‘go to Mininova; it’s great for torrents’ and ended up on Mininova.com which, frankly, didn’t really do it for me.
I later discovered Mininova.org, the ‘real’ Mininova and there’s been no looking back since. If I want a torrent, I check out Mininova. Period.
Thanks guys, for a great site and the wonderful job you’re doing of maintaining and running it.
Cheers!
YEAH !
very well done !!
another scam bites the dust
Awesome, well done guys!
And adios scam artists lol
Well done, making it easier for more people to find diomand and axxo for great films, cheers mininova!!
Nice one, I always typed in the wrong address lol
Next stage : mininova to land on Jupiter \o_
WOW! SWEETNESS! ONE STEP CLOSER TO WORLD DOMINATION!! MUWAHAHAHA!
Great news! Less confusion and more hits to the real mininova!
Keep up the good work, mininova is #1 for torrents!
Nice 1 mininova, but i cant believe that there are people who can be tricked by an scamer like that…
Right done guys it was your right.
Congrats, keep up your work!
Awesome guys! This is one step in getting rid of those phishing sites, which everyone hates!
Great job. Keep going
Wow.. good work mininova. I actually stumbled on the scam site many times.. always thot tht something about it wasn’t real
Nice work Mininova, its good to see people like that being shut down. The torrent community can’t last forever, but while it does Mininova rocks the rest! Keep at it!
Congrats
In the way you will not lose any visitors :>
Excellant!!
well done!! you’ll get plenty more hits now
quite a few times i’ve referred you to other ppl and they’ve gone and put .com but stopped at giving credit card numbers etc
this is excellant news
I’m happy for you guys. Does this mean you’re going to move down in the google’s most searched term list?
congratulations
mininova has always been under my favorites so it hasn’t been that hard for me to find.
great people behind a great site
Good news indeed.
good news !!! Mininova is an award torrent site.
keep up the good job.
free speech for the dumb !!!
this is great news shame the site seems to be down i can not see anyting apart from the front page ,it wont even allow me to view the catorgories
i think miniva
should go .tk
Thanks for the great tracker you guys provide us
I hate scammers…
Mininova rocks! thanks guys!
Thank God you’ve claimed the “mininova.com” domain, I knew something was strange about the scammer’s website. Which is why I googled to get to the right one.
WOO MININOVA ROX!
Bravo, Glad that is over.
Well fought guys.
Wow thats great news….All the best to you guys.
Nice to see that. Congrats. Mininova rocks!
well done!!!!!!!!!!!!!
next news : MININOVA is used by people from other galaxies too….
This used to happen to me a few times before, but I thank you for getting mininova.com fixed to the real page.
Finally…
them dirty bastads!
nice too see my favorite family-friendly site getting better every year.
keep it up.
Good news…. damm scammers… it’s only a matter of time untill they get done…
Awesome 1.
Yah! Great! Whupee!
Now fix your website so it stops killing all my Mac web browsers.
bai merge super asta dar nustiu unde4 sa intru io
Great news! Much easier to find = more visitors = hopefully more torrents
and iam still having prob;ems seeing the site catogories wonr load up
same here
@yoda999 and andrew:
Can you please post (or mail to niek@mininova.org) your country and more details? Preferably a screenshot, that’ll really help me to track down the issue you guys have.
Thanks
I am writing this to let some people know that they are puting there TV Show torrent in the Movie Categorie. It would be nice if you sort your torrets like they should be.
I know you don’t care, but it it would help the rest of us looking for Movies and not TV Shows. Thanks
i live in u k sill no list here
Hey, this is great! Once I have tried getting to mininova and I just tried mininova.com as most of the great sites like this use “com”. But I was surprised because I saw nothing like free downloads and lucky for me, I found mininova.org in the utorrent search. Thank you for your great downloads mininova!!
WHOAA!!!! MININOVA= #1
Awesome takeover, guys! Congratulations on having one of the best sites on the web! Keep up the good work!
Congrats !! Thats a great achievement , you must celebrate this because .com is king of all domains and you got your name.
Well after the domain is urs, as it was abused previously its a good idea to activate whois privacy.
THAT IS BRILLIANT GUYS. YOU ARE THE BEST SITE ON THE WEB AND HAVE OPEN A LOT OF NEW THINGS FOR ME (I.E HEROES)THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL YOU GUYS DO
Not strictly true. You stole the domain name from someone who had registered it before your .org TLD was even first registered, under the threat that you could afford the litigation and he (a 19 year old called Tom in Germany) couldn’t afford to defend himself.
As for his being a “scammer”, that is just bs. Shame on your Niek and Erik, haven’t you earned enough yet from your own scan ads?
well done guys!
and keep up the good work
Sweet
i don’t think you can class him as phishing (not phising - u spelt it wrong), as he was not trying to obtain credit card details or anything like that, just a fee, its more like a con then phishing.
http://isohunt.com/
Yey so no more .com allthough this is book marked so your not hard to find
congratz….
Mininova.com was registered years before mininova.org was. But they had no content on it. (Or perhaps the owner sold it to someone later).
Domain Name:MININOVA.ORG
Created On:18-Jan-2005 11:29:57 UTC
DOMAIN: MININOVA.COM
created-date: 2001-10-18
However according to archive.org, there was no content on it until April, 2005, and then it was just a frame with /http://www.usenext.de in the middle of it.
This may sound a bit odd to most of you but……….
The guy who owned Mininova.COM was using the domain “in bad faith” (as said in the article)
Is it not true that mininova.ORG is also using the domain name in “bad faith”.
I download, I like it, Im a cheap bastard… but to be honest and correct, most of mininova.org’s USERS are downloading illegal software/movies, music that are LINKED from this site. The site is basically is a large network of links to illegal content (generally).
How does the illegitimacy of the 2 sites differ ?
Please do not reply to this post if you are just going to be yelling at me saying im stupid.. I dont need to hear it.
I would like to hear HONEST and mature responses only.
@Anonymous:
Are you serious? Mininova.org is in no way illegal or doing something in “bad faith”. We just offer a (free) search engine and directory, dedicated to torrent files. We even enforce a copyright policy and honor (DMCA et al) takedown notices. How can this site even be possibly illegal?
(Downloading the content is another story. Some content might be copyrighted, and depending on the country where you live, downloading or uploading this content might be illegal to some extend.)
The .com site, however, is a whole different story. First of all, they used our trademark (”mininova”) in an illegal way. But more important, they ran a phishing site and stole credit card info from (hundreds of) visitors.
The most annoying thing was that these visitors thought is was *us* who stole their money, because the .com site redirected to .org after someone shared his credit card info. That’s why we received hundreds of mails from angry users. Several of these mails where part of the evidence used in the dispute.
I hope it’s more clear now. FYI, another blogpost on this case can be found here: http://torrentfreak.com/mininova-wins-com-domain-takes-down-scammer/
yeah! the .com has been PWNED! good work!
great news…..well done mininova!
Keep up the good work guys
Its a great site, I also got confused with mininova.com, I got lots of books from here, what ever i want first i try in mininova. And i am happy to hear that you got the ‘.com’ in your name. All the best, keep up the good work.
Well done people—– Great news
well…i found mininova through BitComet so I didn’t ever run into that
guy.
Great job guys. I wanna see you become the google of torrents. Keep up the good work.
Good Job Mininova
Congrats, Mininova!
hi,im registret at mininova, but i still cant downloud what its privet,pleas help me
Congrats, Mininova
”
This may sound a bit odd to most of you but……….
The guy who owned Mininova.COM was using the domain “in bad faith” (as said in the article)
Is it not true that mininova.ORG is also using the domain name in “bad faith”.
I download, I like it, Im a cheap bastard… but to be honest and correct, most of mininova.org’s USERS are downloading illegal software/movies, music that are LINKED from this site. The site is basically is a large network of links to illegal content (generally).
How does the illegitimacy of the 2 sites differ ?
Please do not reply to this post if you are just going to be yelling at me saying im stupid.. I dont need to hear it.
I would like to hear HONEST and mature responses only.
”
Well, if you go to mininova.org you get access to millions of files…for nothing.
Go to mininova.com, and you pay up to $100…for nothing.
One is a still-disputed case of copyright protection, one is a case of out-and-out fraud. The law is still murky and in dispute about the former. But it’s crystal clear about the latter.
“The site is basically is a large network of links to illegal content (generally).”
You can use google to commit illegal acts, eg. access restricted areas, find mp3s, illegal images. It doesn’t make google illegal itself, it’s just a tool as is mininova. It’s up to the user how they use it.
wat u say may be true but a scrammer is way worse. im not saying anything like ur stupid..but mininova is a great site(period)
thats all i dont want to insult u…that just immature and lame.
CHEERS!!!!!!!
Mininova > life =D
I know from downloading japan animes, that downloading a content is illegal only if this content is licenced for the contry you are downloading to. If you are in france and you download a movie wich has no licence in france belonging to any french editor or broadcaster : it is NOT illegal. But you can do illegal things with that file (using it in a commercial purpose or so, that would be illegal toward the copyright owner…). Moreover the coment telling mininova is a tool as google is and is not playing “bad faith” is legally true. People using , surfing, or downloading from the net should be responsible people… If they ain’t, eventually some measures will be taken to restrain the freedom on the net (if it is technically possible one day… But eventualy everything is). Sites like mininova are places that (to me) make the internet a cultural revolution. Let s make everything to keep it developing and spreading!!
Mininova is a great site, well liked, and certainly profitable enough to afford to threaten (undefended) litigation. Niek, didn’t you recently offer it to John Gotts for $10m? Come on, dude, this holier than thou crap is starting to wear thin to those of us in the know.
But as for being legal, let’s not delude ourselves here. Please. Your site makes a kings ransome in ad revenue, roughly $90k USD/month at a guess, possibly more, and derives that as a direct consequence of facilitating the process of making copyrighted material available for distribution. And according to WIPO, and BREIN, that is hardly legal. And operating in .NL, those are the laws you are supposed to abide by.
With respect, there is no evidence to support your assertion that the .org domain predated the .com domain that you stole from a person you accuse of “phishing” without the slightest shred of hard evidence. And that is not what ICANN upheld.
Mininova.org “won” a default judgement from a small guy who couldn’t aford to defend himself, a guy that you bullied into the ground, and lost his site. Yeah, sure, he advertised one of these pay sites. But given you have advertised pay to view porn sites and Usenext (the biggest scammers ever) yourselves, you guys are hardly in any position to criticise.
It isn’t something to boast about. Mininova isn’t a cultural revolution or even a tracker, it’s just another indexing site - albeit one of the best.
@bullshit:
Don’t worry, we know exactly what’s legal and what’s not (in contrast with you, it seems). In fact, the higher our advertising revenues, the stronger our case; it means we lost more money to this scammer.
And this guy was unable to defend himself? Don’t make me laugh, he made at least several thousands per month from stealing people’s money (example). There is no way anyone could ever justify his actions.
And by the way, get your facts straight: we do not advertise porn sites, and UseNeXT is not a scam service.
Some acknowledgement for bringing down this thief would be appreciated.
I, too, know the difference between what is legal and what isn’t. And Mininova isn’t.
Compliance with DMCA hardly legitimises your actions, it means nothing outside of the USA.
I note that you don’t dispute the fact that this guy’s site preceded yours in terms of the dates of domain registration, or that you make a fortune through facilitating the unlawful distribution of copyrighted material, but merely (wrongly) assert that this guy’s association with affiliation cash amounted to “theft”. Yet you curiously defend your support for the widely despised usenet equivalant of affliation cash, Usenext.Curious hypocrisy.
You cannot call a person a thief unless there has been proof of any wrongdoing. You have none. ICANN merely granted you a default judgement in respect of a undefended action brought by yourselves against a kid who beat you to the .com variant of mininova.
Don’t misunderstand me, Niek, you have a good site and deserve the incredible lifestyle your income earns you. But what you do isn’t legal, and nobody appointed you as policemen.
*Sigh*… I’m not going to defend myself against all these nonsense statements.
Just to point out one of the many facts you got wrong: as stated in the dispute descicion, the scammer activated his phishing site 1.5 year after we went live. The domain registration date has nothing todo with his activities on that domain.
Besides, this case is not a “default judgement”, the judge clearly considered the interests of both the complainant and the respondent.
If you trick people into paying money for a free service of someone else (in this case: us), by using the other’s trademark, than “thief” is the correct formulation.
And that, my dear “bullshit”, is not even remotely comparable with running a DMCA and EUCD-compliant search engine
For many months mininova.com actually ran a usenext affiliation site (which you call “the biggest scammers ever”, and therefore calling you friend Tom a scammer) for which you actually get something in return after paying, in contrary to a >$40 utorrent download a crappy 2 page user guide that looks like it’s created by a 12 year old…
One more thing, your friend Thomas Schilling is really a great guy (just google his name a bit… for example`”Thomas Schilling” whois` all kinds of scam stuff like dialers in the old days). Really someone who contributes to the internet. He never contacted us or anything at all, we’d love to chat with him about this, so if you could supply us with an e-mail address or something?
Ahh, the overwhelming power of two admins. At least this got your attention and I think you are protesting just a tad too loudly.
Niek, you can’t defend yourself because you know as well as I do that much, if not all, of what I’m saying is true.
The fact that the other registrant registered his site before you registered your own is the issue at hand, not what he did with it. That is specious reasoning.
Tom is certainly no friend of mine, but the his lastname is common enough and I think you are confusing a kid with someone much older. And I feel sorry for him that you bullied him into submission.
Whether affiliation cash product is value for money is a subjective argument, the forums and support they provide have introduced hundreds of thousands to filesharing, holding their hands and saving them months of trawling around for the information they desire. You are paying for the service, not necessarily the volume of the content.But accusing someone of theft is crossing the line between honesty and an outright libel.
As far as I know, and I am not without knowledge in this field, there is no such thing as an EUCD or DMCA “compliant” search engine, as Google/YouTube found out to their cost very recently.
You are facilitating the unlawful distribution of copyrighted material. The fact that you are operating the site for commercial gain equates to criminal activity in both the US and the EU.
And the fact that you don’t publish genuine (physical) contact addresses proves that you know full well the thin ice you are skating on.
I will gladly give you the full physical address of the Tom I have spoken to in return for your own physical (genuine) addresses. Then we can each prove our respective points
Good job on getting the .com address. Fortunately I never came across it, in fact I didn’t even know it used to exist until this blog post (ex supr user, .org fo’ lyfe! heh)
I’m not really a fan of the morality parade thats marching through here, especially when both sides are on the wrong side of the law. But hell, the only reason one would visit a torrent site anyway is for pirat— the ambience
Again, good job.
@bullshit:
You have really NO idea what you are talking about. Everyone can look up our company address within a few seconds on the Dutch Chamber of Commerce website; as a respectable organisation we’ve nothing to hide. Having said that, I feel no urge to defend myself any more to these stupid and nonsense accusations.
Discussion closed, if you want to continue this conversation, feel free to mail me.
Given that it was you who accused someone else of being a thief, it’s a bit rich that you can’t take criticism yourself. I wasn’t trolling, just trying to present a balance.
I’ll get someone we both know to email you, happily.
Good Job mininova. I was hoping if somone cut help me? I´m looking for a name of anime show with white dragon in it. If anybody knows it please let me know.
i use this site just for the movies of aXXo he is the best i have a great colection of movies tks for existing MININOVA
sory for gramatical words i’m from Spain!!!
Search works, categories are a great asset. Also enjoy the sorting methods used, and the reliability of the host. The addition of the .com will save me a few sighing breaths I’m sure.
Great job, i hate that type of sites, is like when amazon and yahoo had problems, with (If i remember well)poeen sites, that take advantage, with nearly identic url, and for bullshit, is true that internet is something very hard to legislate, but about material in sites like mininova, is only fault oof users, as is clear mininova is only a specialized search engine, and don’t perform any illegal activities.
Maybe in some moment new laws may come and make search engines restrict the material that cand be founded (like the youtube case) , but it will take very long time, and discussions about freedome.
And about the “poor” boy owner of the .com site, is strange that the site weren’t working until mininova.org were showing to be a profitable site, it seem to me clear, that he registered the site waiting for someone of maybe a big company buy the domain, like the one that registered the letter “ñ” of the spanish language an make millions from that, but when mininova stay like and org and being a searched site, he start to look for make money from that…
I apologize for the posible gramatical errors, english is not my main language.
using legal to mantain free access to illegal.
great!
we love illegal
DOES ANYONE HAVE SECURITY ANALYSIS 5TH EDITION,IF SO,PLEASE POST.GREATLY APPRECIATED.MONEY IS POWER,GREED IS GOOD.
Too bad your domain won’t be the most googled anymore lol
Nice work!
muy bueno amigos !!!!
congrats!
Mininova ROCKS!!!
Congrats! =)
yataaaaa! Keep it up! U r by far the best torrent site out there!
…Reubs!
tell me more
Congratulations! That is very exciting!
thatz cool ! keep it up guys
man whatever happened to suprnova.org ,that was da shit
Great news! Cheers to Mininova!
Glad to see you guys came out on top. Now we can all expect the number of users to rise inconsiderably.
Looking forward to seeing Mininova as one of the most talked and highly recommended sites on the net!
Rock on guys! ^__^
Everyone should take for itself the most used domain extensions.
—
Find out more about sexy Karolina Goceva - Macedonian representative at “Eurovision Song Contest 2007″.
[ http://www.karolinagoceva.co.nr ]
Dear bullshit, your arguments, appear to me, to fall far short of offering a “balanced” view point.
If you use mininova.org how can you take the moral high ground.
Is you association with the .COM more than a passing interest. Will this judgment have an effect on your own income?
That said MININOVA rocks. Keep up the great work and everyone else PLEASE SEED MORE!!!
Great news! to descover MININOVA.COM
I found the argument put forward by bullshit intriguing and humourous yet lacking in the so called “balance” he was looking to add to the debate. But even more importantly “org” pwns “com” anyway and im glad they won their legal battle.
That is great…..a…news…….
My Best Wishes………..always……….
This is really something, I had seen the .com before, but that was after id come here first. ive googled mininova so many times its second nature now, cheers on a nice outcome too.
Great.The best torrent site is free of this scammer. I just sometimes was deceived.Congratilations. Cheers!!!!
Thank you for your great downloads mininova