Music piracy Web site closed after UK, Dutch raids

Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:17am EDT

 

By Luke Baker

 

LONDON (Reuters) - British and Dutch police shut down one of the world's largest sources of illegal pre-release music on Tuesday and arrested a 24-year-old man.

 

The raids in Amsterdam and the northeast English city of Middlesbrough followed a two-year investigation into a members-only Web site, www.OiNK.cd, which allowed users to upload and download albums before their release.

 

Pre-release leaks have become one of the most damaging forms of piracy for the music industry which is struggling with falling sales. Recorded music sales have fallen by more than a third in the last six years, the industry says.

 

An estimated 180,000 members paid 'donations' via debit or credit cards for OiNK's catalogue of music and other media.

 

Industry experts said the site had provided access to more than 60 albums before their release this year alone.

 

"OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online," said Jeremy Banks, the head of the anti-piracy unit at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which helped police with their investigation.

 

"This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure. This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online."

 

Pre-release piracy is regarded as particularly damaging because it leads to unauthorized mixes or unfinished versions of artists' recordings appearing months before they are meant to.

 

Often it is those in the industry, who get promotional or demonstration copies of albums before their release, who are involved in leaking them to file-sharing sites.

 

British police said they arrested the 24-year-old on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and infringement of copyright law. Dutch police seized servers and other computer equipment.

 

"While some might view this type of act as a victimless crime, there's no such thing," said Chief Superintendent Mark Braithwaite of the Cleveland police.

 

"The cost of an enterprise such as this will be added to the cost of any legitimate purchases further down the line."

 

Artists are experimenting with new ways of distributing their music to fans, including providing it free over the Internet. British band Radiohead released its latest album on the Web and invited fans to pay a donation to download it.

 

A raid in Sweden last year shut down an Internet site that police said was a major source of music and film piracy.

Terrible, I always check my stats before I go to work in the morning and I saw the page.

 

 

Sucks so bad.

 

There is a lot of misinformation in that article as well. Not surprising.

:clapping

Says the music fan.

What information is not correct in that article? (not being a smartass, just asking)

Oh and your damn right Im a music fan.

 

 

Please explain what could possibly be ethical about someone releasing albums prior to their intended release date by the artist and their label?

I spoke too soon, the original BBC articles had some false statements in there.

 

Things like donating to stay on the site, and forcing people to upload and download certain albums is false.

 

This article is bare bones enough to be factual.

 

I'm not going to get in to a debate about 'ethics' but that site and file sharing in general is not the downfall of record sales or what is hurting the record industry. The ammount of hard medium I've bought since I got on that site last year has increased probably 800-900% from what I used to buy.

f***!!!

f***!!!

I had like 60 bookmarks on there, I wish I had like 24 hours warning.

 

To all the pro-RIAA people. This just in: Just because this site is in, doesn't mean I will be buying more music. Probably less. I have absolutely no desire to give money to an artist who is under the RIAA's umbrella anymore.

98% of pre-releases are 'leaked' by people within the labels.

 

The RIAA should start policing it's own first.

Should you regular users be worried about anything?

Should you regular users be worried about anything?

No way.

 

1. The site was raided by Dutch police and conducted by mainly the british phonographic industry. I'm an American. Although I absolutely suspect the RIAA will get involved.

 

2. The site had 180,000 current users.

 

3. The site tracks stats, it never logged IP's.

 

4. These recording industries and police have shown they have no idea how to prosecute people. They are just now prosecuting people who shared on Kazaa and other archaic p2p networks. Bittorrent is a murky thing to prosecute because the technology is different then that of p2p applications.

 

It will be interesting to see how hardcore the admins fight this. The Pirate Bay has much dirtier fingers and they got all their charges dropped. TPB's admins are a totally different breed though.

Damn there was so much I wanted to download.

Misinformation much?

 

No one ever paid for a subscription there and no one ever paid to leech.

 

Plus, the notion that he earned thousands of dollars off the site is a joke.

For me personally, it doesnt matter if he made $ or not.

 

The songs were never his to provide/sell/give away on the internet.

 

 

 

Fox, how do we know for sure how much he did or didnt make? Was he doing it out of the goodness of his heart?

He never hosted anything.

 

Do you even know how bittorrent works? Nothing is hosted on any server. Oink never even uploaded an album himself on the site.

 

I know there was never a set ammount to donate (I donated 10 dollars) and what you donated was up to you plus it was a one time donation. They were not making a lot of money on the site, I'd be surprised if he made much more then just monthly costs.

Im honestly don't know a lot about bittorrent. Im doin some research on it right now though.

 

 

I don't know how things work in Britain or Holland but here in the States, police need Probable Cause to bust into your residence with a warrant and make an arrest so Im assuuming that this guy did break a law or two..

 

I feel like that part is getting lost in this discussion a little.

Did anyone ever say that?

 

I'm sure the police feel they have a lot, but if OiNK/Alan is agressive this could go away. TPB is an easy example of this. The very nature of BitTorrent makes it hard to stick on anyone. That is why it has become so popular in the last year or so (among other reasons, speed etc.).

 

OiNK/almost any BitTorrent site has a warning/law that they are not responsible for what their users upload. Anyone who thinks this was some mid-20s 'kid' who just had a bunch of servers in his room and built a huge site without having backups, and a contingency plan in place is foolish.

Oh well...I just got on there too. Back to Soulseek/Demonoid for me. Makes no difference to me.

Oh noes! There are plenty of other "sources"

 

I didn't even notice as I hadn't been on in a few days.

sucks for me because i didn't even get to take advantage as much as i would have liked to since i was just figuring out how it all works. i didn't even care for the pre-released stuff, they just had a sick collection overall that i couldn't find in regular p2p networks.

Oh noes! There are plenty of other "sources"

 

I didn't even notice as I hadn't been on in a few days.

Nobody could claim the lossless selection and proper LAME rips that they had.

Oh noes! There are plenty of other "sources"

 

I didn't even notice as I hadn't been on in a few days.

Nobody could claim the lossless selection and proper LAME rips that they had.

Oh no doubt man. FLAC heaven for me. I mean when I can find old early 90's grunge rips in FLAC, I'm impressed.

 

That site will def be missed.

Oh noes! There are plenty of other "sources"

 

I didn't even notice as I hadn't been on in a few days.

Nobody could claim the lossless selection and proper LAME rips that they had.

 

 

And with how many people seeding albums, you download 100mb albums in seconds. Most trackers take awhile, expecially when it comes to rarer music.

 

I am sad. :confused

The paranoia tidal wave of users on that site that think they are going to be in trouble is hysterical.

OiNK.cd only kept logs for a total of seven days for maintenance purposes, after which they were deleted. They'll have our ratios and possibly snatch lists, but no personally identifying information.

 

The tracker was originally taken down because of pre-release (presumably mainstream) material. About three months ago, the White Stripes' Icky Thump album mysteriously disappeared, and the mods warned us not to repost it. The log said it was removed "by request." This was occurring right around the time they were having DNS problems and had to switch to OiNK.cd. It also fits the "three month" timeline better than the "two year investigation," which I highly doubt.

 

Bottom line? if you downloaded a popular pre-release within the last week, you're suspect to be tracked down. But there's no way they'll go after 180,000 users? the countersuits would be ridiculous.