There's Life After Piracy, Mininova Strikes Deal with ViewCave

ViewCave, a new online film distribution and video streaming company based in California, will be alternatively releasing content in torrent form through Mininova's service. After a court decision forced the famous torrent tracker to remove all infringing content, Mininova's management finds a glimmer of hope (and possible income) as a content distribution service.

The deal couldn't have come any later. Since the dreaded take down, Mininova has been falling down traffic rankings and was set to become irrelevant in the P2P medium in a couple of months.

The collaboration will see the tracker host torrent files for ViewCave's video shows. While most film distribution services concentrate their services on the US using complex proprietary video streaming services, ViewCave will be giving users the possibility to download their favorite shows and watch them on their computer if the available bandwidth don't allow them to see the video at a high resolution or reasonable bitrates.

Mininova doesn't have exclusivity for the torrents, the files being available on ViewCave's site as well. What Mininova has, is the possibility to finally make some money besides its in-site advertising.

“The win-win relationship allows ViewCave to reach potentially millions of international viewers and Mininova to share in ViewCave’s in-video advertising revenue,” the press release read.

“The relationship with Mininova helps us to achieve [...] [our] goals,” said Adrian Bertino-Clarke, ViewCave’s CEO, while also adding, “Once content owners and advertisers realize the magnitude of what we have created and the reach we have into video consumer networks, the flood gates will be open. In this proposition absolutely everybody wins”    

For now, ViewCave's delivery platform is still in Alpha testing, and with around only 300 videos, it is a long away from being a real threat to the likes of Hulu. As a positive, ViewCave unlike Hulu can be viewed in most countries around the Globe, while also being accessible from iPhone and iPad devices, and that's a good starting point.