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October 23, 2007

Oink raided by the pigs: Interpol investigation shuts file sharing site...servers seized in Amsterdam...one arrest in the UK...

The Daily Swarm | Read Full Story >

UPDATE: Daily Telegraph: Oink founder: We’re just like Google:

“I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t believe my website breaks the law. They don’t understand how it works.

“The website is very different from how the police are making it out to be. There is no music sold on the site – I am doing nothing wrong.

“When I set up the site I didn’t think I was doing anything illegal and I still don’t. There are 180,000 users and there has been an outcry about what has happened to me.

“People who download music also buy CDs as well. A lot of people download music on the internet to get a taste of it and then later buy the CD.

“But I don’t sell music to people, I just direct them to it. If somebody wants to illegally download music they are going to do it whether my site is there or not.

“If this goes to court it is going to set a huge precedent. It will change the internet as we know it.

“As far as I am aware no-one in Britain has ever been taken to court for running a website like mine. My site is no different to something like Google.

“If Google directed someone to a site they can illegally download music they are doing the same as what I have been accused of. I am not making any Oink users break the law. People don’t pay to use the site.”

UPDATE: TorrentFreak: Oink admin released from custody:

The OiNK admin contacted TorrentFreak by email which confirms his release.

UPDATE: BBC raid video + Campus TV (translated by TDS reader Tom):

In an interview with the Campus TV, CEO Pieter Taks of Oink’s Dutch hosting provider claims they lost 30,000 euro’s worth of equipment this morning in a police raid. He also says they didn’t know anything about Oink’s illegal activities…

Paid Content:

British and Dutch police have apparently shut down a private Bit Torrent tracker the music industry says was the world’s biggest online network of illegal pre-release albums. Membership of OiNK is highly sought-after, with invites selling on eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) and dozens of requests posted online. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) estimated its membership at 180,000 and reckons 60 albums so far this year have hit the P2P network ahead of their street date. Working on information from IFPI and the British Phonographic Industry (IFPI) with Interpol, Cleveland police arrested a 24-year-old Middlesbrough man alleged to be the admin; servers were confiscated in Amsterdam last week. The BPI reckons the action will cause “major disruption”. OiNK was forced to move from oink.me.uk to oink.cd this summer after legal pressure from British domain name registry Nominet.

BBC:

British and Dutch police have shut down one of the world’s biggest sources of illegally-downloaded music.

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.

Reuters:

“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.

Billboard:

“The government is now well aware of the scale of damage this theft causes to music – copyright theft starves the creative industries of income, which both threatens future investment in artists and vandalises our culture,” noted BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor.

“That this individual now faces criminal charges will deter some but no doubt others will be looking move into this territory, and the authorities must keep up the pressure to deter the digital freeloaders.”


Post a comment

Previous comments include

#1 no one says:

shit

#2 jeff says:

i'd like a comment from tical please.

#3 tical says:

Thanks, The Daily Swarm! I'm sure that plastering the link all over your front page in your desperate attempts to seem cool was worth it! Bravo gentlemen, good show.

#4 tical says:

ahh well, back to seeking the soul?

#5 tds editors says:

Yes, we take full credit for this. According to tical, the single post that brought down Oink:

http://www.thedailyswarm.com/swarm/oi...

Or, maybe, it was the two year investigation (that pre-dates this site by 19 months).

Sorry tical, no regrets.

#6 n says:

Oink was a great community. Today is a sad day for music fans.

#7 tical says:

I recall that you guys had another post a while back when oink.me.uk changed to oink.cd. You seemed to think that this domain name switch was also newsworthy enough to deserve a mention on your front page. Good job guys, keep gettin that street cred by any means necessary.

#8 Sam says:

Yes, Tical. A huge network of people worked together for years to steal billions of dollars worth of music, and it's TDS's fault that it was busted because they wrote about it twice. With logic like that it's no wonder our economy is going down the tubes!

#9 tical says:

I'm not naive enough to really think that TDS contributed to this in anyway.

But hopefully when the next site steps up to take the Oink crown, TDS won't be blasting a headline two days later: "XTorrent.com, the new OINK?" and just posting the link willy-nilly.

#10 efrain says:

Good to hear the pig is in the pen. what a horrible site they were.

#11 Matthew says:

I presume that anyone who had been using oink both loves music and hates musicians. Whether they realize it or not, that's what the behavior would indicate.

#12 heh says:

Don't worry folks. Oink was great, but there are others.

It's like a Hydra, you cut one limb off and another one is already growing in it's place.

=)

#13 James says:

Obviously, douche, (hog) you dont understand audiophiles.
Yeah, you're right, we all thought that people like you didnt deserve OiNK.

#14 hog says:

thank god. this is the best news since .... shit. i don't know. the way people paraded oink invites and proudly pirated leaks and singles was disgusting. Oink indeed.

#15 Sam says:

I never understood how "audiophiles" could maintain such a high-and-mighty air about being on Oink. Would a true "audiophile" really rely on stolen mp3s for his/her music?

#16 Dorian says:

If music, etc., is so precious, how come Mrs. Maloney down at the local public library can purchase a copyrighted CD (or borrow it from another knuckle-dragging Communist Socialist American public library), lend it out to me to copy it--or destroy it, or whatever--and charge me a fee or a fine if I've destroyed it or if I'm late in returning it and Five-O doesn't give a hoot? Shouldn't we throw that dusty, filthy, dried-up old hag in jail, as well?

#17 Tical hater, Simon says:

Tical, here's an idea: why don't I reach into your bank account and take your sissy funds just as you are about to make an ATM withdrawl to buy yourself a new pair of pink piggy panties. Then, all the musicians you have stolen from get to beat you with raw bacon.

#18 Yim Jimmy says:

Real artists wouldn't care about having their music downloaded for free. The modest living they make touring and crowd response should be enough to please a real artist anyway. Weren't all the best records most bands made when they were dirt poor anyway? How come artists that paint never make lucrative salaries? are musicians not artists?
Tical hater simon, I bet that you know nothing about music - you probably still think Green Day's "American Idiot" was the best thing that ever came out - and you are obviously not a musician (Unless you consider knowing the power chords to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" being a musician)

#19 tical says:

"stealing music"?! are you stuck in the year 1999 by any chance? wake the fuck up, son.

#20 disinformator says:

Humans were making music before they started making business.
Somewhere along the line music became part of an industry ...well it's time for that concept to go, music is more than making money. Time will tell.

#21 Sam says:

Yes, music used to be free. People used to live in caste systems where they had no choice but to spend all day (and night) working to make sure there was enough food to survive. Luckily modern social and technological advances have made it possible for humans to pursue careers (yes CAREERS) in fields that aren't directly related to daily sustenance. It continues to boggle my mind that people are so shameless about feeling entitled to receiving a valuable good like music for free. Do you demand that your apartment be free? People used to live in caves rent-free!

#22 Quisp says:

An interesting quote from Jeff Tweedy on the concept of stealing music:

"A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work.

Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator.

People who look at music as commerce don't understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property.

I'm not interested in selling pieces of plastic. "

#23 EEK! says:

seriously sad, i got sooooo many old marley albums that nobody else has! now im stuck with limewire..


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