If Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN have their way, popular torrent site Mininova will have to install a filter that hides search results of content that is copyright protected. But if the law is on Mininovas side they wont be changing a thing. From Ars Technica:

It transpires that BREIN and Mininova have been secretly trying to reach a mutually beneficial agreement for more than a year now, but when one side believes they are acting within the law and the other side believes the opposite, a legal clash seems inevitable.

Mininova co-founder Erik Dubbelboer says he is fully confident he is operating within the law, and they will remove any offending search results if a copyright holder asks them to, just like Youtube. And just like when this sort of thing happens with Youtube, there is no further action taken.

The thing is that Mininova don't actually host any copyright protected files, they just provide links to download files just like Google or any other search engine. And you can't watch or listen to a torrent. A torrent is the equivalent of me sending you a bookmark that lets you download a file that I don't have stored on my computer. It can be described as saying "Hey there; I don't have that movie you want to download, because I don't store any media or software. But here's a little file that will get it for you."

But even knowing that doesn't stop organisations like BREIN from pursuing them anyway. In the authors opinion it's not only unwarranted but also a complete waste of time and resources.

It's incredibly unlikely that anything will change for Mininova, but watch with interest.