OiNK goes down

[MaliceDR]

The music file-sharing website known as OiNK was shut down today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tees/7057812.stm

A flat on Teesside and several properties in Amsterdam were raided as part of an Interpol investigation into the members-only website OiNK.

The UK-run site has leaked 60 major pre-release albums this year alone, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

A 24-year-old man from Middlesbrough was arrested on Tuesday morning.

'Extremely lucrative'

The IT worker was led from his home in the town's Grange Road and is being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and infringement of copyright law.

At the same time his employer - a large multi-national company - and his father's home were also raided.

A Cleveland Police spokesman said: "This extremely lucrative and creative scheme consisted of a private file-sharing website being set up. Membership was by invitation only.

"The site allowed the uploading and downloading of pre-release music and media to thousands of members."

An IFPI spokesman said: "Once an album had been posted on the OiNK website, the users that download that music then passed the content to other websites, forums and blogs, where multiple copies were made.

"Within a few hours of a popular pre-release track being posted on the OiNK site, hundreds of copies can be found further down the illegal online supply chain."

The site's servers, based in Amsterdam, were seized in a series of raids last week.

It followed a two-year investigation by music industry bodies the IFPI and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

Feel free to share your thoughts on the closing of this site and/or music file-sharing in general. Please DO NOT post anything about currently-existing file-sharing web sites.

Personally I am torn. The music industry has indeed lost money due to illegal file-sharing, but it has not been an obscene amount.



I feel it is safe to share this story here since OiNK no longer exists as a file sharing community.

[HSaabedra]

The music file-sharing website known as OiNK was shut down today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tees/7057812.stm



Feel free to share your thoughts on the closing of this site and/or music file-sharing in general. Please DO NOT post anything about currently-existing file-sharing web sites.

Personally I am torn. The music industry has indeed lost money due to illegal file-sharing, but it has not been an obscene amount.

I feel it is safe to share this story here since OiNK no longer exists as a file sharing community.

I hope more of these so called communities die in a fire. The fact that everything they had was easily available in other ways doesn't help their case. The recording industry is resisting the shift back towards singles, which is why they're losing money.

[Animematt55]

Dude, Interpol busted them?
Maybe Zenigata was there.... Or maybe even.... TOMO!

[Kenpachi]

wait, people on these forums? crap.

[Raziel_MGS]

yea this is crap, i dunno about these people, but the music i dl from them and like i buy...but yea this is a step down for music in general

[HSaabedra]

yea this is crap, i dunno about these people, but the music i dl from them and like i buy...but yea this is a step down for music in general

There's other alternatives besides outright theft. Or are you one of those that thinks music isn't worth paying for in general?

[MaliceDR]

There's other alternatives besides outright theft. Or are you one of those that thinks music isn't worth paying for in general?
I personally would like to try out a few tracks before investing in an entire album so I know I'm not going to purchase trash.

[HSaabedra]

I personally would like to try out a few tracks before investing in an entire album so I know I'm not going to purchase trash.

Pandora
LastFM
Slacker
Deezer
Lala

are all good examples of sites that offer free access to music without resorting to theft.

[MaliceDR]

And Pandora is indeed a beastly site.

[cloud1989]

trent was a member of oink to

http://torrentfreak.com/nine-inch-nails-frontman-was-a-member-of-oink-071031/

kind of interesting I guess, when music artist themselves are doing it to.

[VSh]

I liked this...


smartface> did they actually question you?
OiNK> of course, for hours
OiNK> the police had very limited technical knowledge, which made the interview quite amusing actually.
OiNK> i wasn’t willing to teach them how to use a computer
OiNK> they actually wanted me to teach them how to set up a website
OiNK> i just told them to google it.

[HSaabedra]

trent was a member of oink to

http://torrentfreak.com/nine-inch-nails-frontman-was-a-member-of-oink-071031/

kind of interesting I guess, when music artist themselves are doing it to.

He actually distributed the unreleased promo film for "Broken" through BT trackers as complete DVD files as it was originally intended to be officially released last year. That fell through, yet he still had the masters so he "leaked" it on purpose.

Most artists don't have the kind of following or the freedom and control that he had during his tenure on Nothing/Interscope. I wouldn't take his involvement to mean much beyond the fact that he wanted to release some things the label wouldn't. I don't believe he would advocate wholesale theft of music in general unless he approved it for his own material, which he did (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/17/1948238&from=rss).

[cloud1989]

well, if you read the whole torrent freak page he most definitely said he stole music to, and that he visited quite often, I don't think someone would visit a place like that just to look around, but one artist really doesn't mean much I suppose But I'm sure he is not the only.