Mininova is gently shaking the world

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world”, Mahatma Gandhi.

If you visit Mininova site, you will see some ads to the right, but other than that have a nice clean layout. The site has a Web 2.0 air, with soft colors that come easy to the eye. It will not get the same good PR as other Web 2.0 sites, because is a BitTorrent index site and the protocol is seen as bad and only useful for piracy. However BitTorrent is more than that, is a way of distribution large files without incurring in high bandwidth costs, since we download from other peers that have the file, not a server, this way distributing the load among the peers. Everybody knows that BitTorrent can be use for distributing “legal stuff”, still nobody has done anything about it, until Mininova.

Enter Mininova in 2007, with there new distribution service. The service offers, to the owner ( or the your company) of the copyrights of quality content, a tool to distribute the content for free, if it promises tol not upload DRM protected content or spam and not charge for content. And this is a WIN-WIN-WIN situation because:

• the owner of the content can distribute their content at no cost (unlike other forms of hard media or self hosting)
• the fans get quality content at high speeds without paying extra money (other than their internet connection)
• Mininova (and BitTorrent community) because shows that the protocol is good for legal distribution

At first glance, it might not be seen as a big deal since there are similar services like Jamendo, where artists can distribute their content under Creative Commons. Also, in recent news the Norwegian State TV launched a tracker to distribute their TV shows,  BBC also is experimenting with torrents, by providing downloads under creative commons of their TV shows, starting with R&DTV. All is great stuff and I wish more media companies join the BitTorrent bandwagon, still Mininova is offering a platform and now includes a way to monetization. Yes, now artists can distribute their content digitally and offer their fans the option to buy the album (see image) or donate to the artist using paypal (kind of pay what you want scheme).  They also offer fans a 20% discount if they seed the albums.

The Dutch record label Beep! Beep! is one of the firsts of first to partner with Mininova, uploading all their discography. Given that Mininova resides in the Netherlands, is natural business move for a small local record label to use the service. Permits them to deal face to face and smooth out any rough edges. When you click on the buy now button, it will take you to a shopify page where you can do finalize the transaction. The service, can also provide new fans of the band, with concert tickets and merchandise of the band. You can see all the Beep! Beep! releases here.

Beep! Beep! and other record labels can differentiate from the big labels using Mininova as a Partner. They get some free PR and can be subject of viral marketing, which is welcome when you don’t have the big resources of the “big 4″.

Contrast of Styles

Although in mainstream media The Pirate Bay (TPB) is the best known BitTorrent entity, with their trail and raids, Mininova is the king of BitTorrents. Mininova is on the top 100 most visited sites in the world, it was recently reported that it had its 8 billion download and is constantly changing and adding new features. In other words, Mininova has become the place to look for media (as Google is for information).

The Pirate Bay shakes the world aggressively, they are the biggest BitTorrent tracker, don’t care about copyright material on their site, and where the protagonists of a spectrail (which will soon dominate the news again). They don’t care how they do it, they want to change the world with a bang (and apparently they are successful). On the other hand Mininova has a more passive approach try to be under the radar. They even have a friendly copyright policy, here is a fragment of the copyright policy page:

Please note that we do not host any copyrighted content on this website. The torrent (metadata) files that we host do not contain data that might be copyrighted in any way. However, we offer a service to remove torrents from our website if the copyright holder of the content requests so.

In contrast TPB publishes the emails asking them to remove torrents, in a section they call “legal threats“. Also they promise no torrent files will be taken out, never ever.We need both them, kind of a God Cop, Bad Cop scene, so the media industry understands that they have to give in.

Change is already here and there is no way to go back to the old practices of tell us what to consume, nop now is our turn. If you had to give this two entities a character although not accurate, you can see The Pirate Bay as Richard Stallman (idealist, crazy, funny and loud) and Mininova as Linus Torvalds (quiet, is about business, has a plan and takes a step at a time).

Step at a Time

Mininova are playing it smart, trying and experimenting. Slowly but surely getting more people involved and cleaning up the act of BitTorrent. They want to change the world a torrent at a time, gently rocking the music industry (as well as movie and TV). They don’t just want to be a trend setter and then fade out into the horizon, while others take all the glory. Time will tell us what will be of Mininova and TPB, still today they are forces of change.