OiNK Admin and Uploaders Appear in Court
Written by enigmax on December 13, 2008Yesterday, well over a year since the initial raids, Alan Ellis the ex-admin of OiNK, appeared in crown court along with five users accused of uploading music via the now-defunct BitTorrent tracker. Ellis appeared charged with conspiracy to defraud, while the others faced copyright charges.
In October 2007, Operation Ark Royal achieved its aims. OiNK, one of the biggest and probably the most prestigious tracker in the world, was shut down in a joint effort by British and Dutch law enforcement.
Site administrator Alan Ellis, 25, was arrested immediately and eventually charged with conspiracy to defraud.
Five others, who were arrested months later, were accused of uploading music to others via the site. They were charged with copyright infringement offenses.
Yesterday, all six appeared at Teesside Crown Court in the UK. Ellis faced a charge of conspiracy to defraud, while the others – Steven Diprose, 21, from Staines, London, James Garner, 19, from Winsford, Cheshire, Michael Myers, 34, of Brough in North Humberside, Mark Tugwell, 19, from Caister near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and Matthew Wyatt, 19, a student in London but originally from Stamford, Lincolnshire – all faced charges of copyright infringement.
Ellis did not enter a plea, and his case has been adjourned until 23 March 2009. The five uploaders entered pleas, and their hearing will continue at a later stage. All five uploaders were accused of making music albums available on OiNK, and according to insider information, at least four of them pleaded guilty.
Previously: Anti-Piracy Outfit Shuts Down 75 Torrent Sites
Next: Canada Increases ‘Music Industry Subsidy’ on Blank CDs
58 Responses
Stupid Cops and Kangaroo courts, seems there is a sudden shortage of REAL crime to deal with.
jes
Good luck!
I miss OiNK:-( I hope the courts see it for what it really is and don’t belive the Po Po’s Propaganda!
That’s right, prosecute the penniless students.
Should never have pleaded guilty. If they’re convicted they should file for bankruptcy.
Hardly “insider information”. All courts are public in the UK except in exceptional circumstances.
I really don’t know much about the UK court system, but by US standards the evidence is so tainted and the execution of the arrests and problematic as a whole that this would be an utter law enforcement defeat and debacle. Esp using evidence submitted by people in the employment of the victims ans allowing them to place a sign on the virtual property of the suspects…
Imagine arresting someone on murder charges and the helping the victims family place a sign calling the suspect a murderer on his lawn with the victim’s family signature on it…
BAD po po, BAD
some SMART boys f*cked up the financial markets all over the world and the SMART boys from the anti copyright agency’s spend the fewer artists money by chasing students and kindergarden kids…….NICE :(
So they’re all from the UK?
Agree with you #6, but it really depends on you getting a decent lawyer. Also if the press are not on your side and see you as a criminal before your trial, you are not likely to get a fair trial. Let us hope Oink’s lawyer is good.
Does anyone know why the case was adjourned again?
have fun in jail and enjoy your fines!
@9 Barse
Well, seeing how there is no group of people supporting legalizing file-sharing etc. in the U.K. unlike in Sweden, of course, the press can see it only one way, because there is no other side.
Roze
Pleading guilty ?
I would never have done that, but i am in the NL. Thats exactly why “Brein” is only after the sites and not the uploaders …
Good job! Im glad to see these criminal scum going to prison.
A black man will make them his next wife. >:)
“That’s right, prosecute the penniless students.”
Are you a moron? these Admins at decent trackers are fucking leeches, who make shit loads thru “donations”
You have been charged with SHARING! Stop sharing, thats wrong.
Bunch of bullS***!
Interesting that the prosecutors went down the conspiracy to defraud route for Ellis’s prosecution. They are going to have to prove that he entered into an agreement with another or others to dishonestly obtain something from another. In this case I assume that infringing another’s copyright would suffice.
There is a useful fact sheet on the offence on the Northumbrian Police’s website http://tinyurl.com/5bvydz
OiNK was such a good tracker.
Good luck to you all!
@14,
OiNK was one of the good trackers which didn’t profit off donations… That’s why they didn’t have a pay-to-leech policy or any shit like that.
This whole matter is taking entirely too long. The courts need to hurry this along. Either the prosecution has the evidence or they don’t. I’m tired of hearing news every few months that the case has, yet again, been extended. It would be nice if we could get some closure on this issue.
faulkuss: “This whole matter is taking entirely too long. The courts need to hurry this along. Either the prosecution has the evidence or they don’t. I’m tired of hearing news every few months that the case has, yet again, been extended.”
Heh.
That’s why the whole matter is taking entirely too long and the case keeps getting extended. The prosecution’s evidence is basically un-admissable.
I can’t see how you can say that the prosecutions case is inadmissible. Especially as four of the defendants have pleaded guilty. Presumably the prosecution are hoping Ellis will be given a custodial sentence by suggesting that he was involved in a conspiracy against copyright holders rather than merely working on a website that was by all accounts not done for profit or as a business.
@13
surely u know nothing about prison so gtfo
Hey! How can I get paid by the RIAA etc. to post negative comments on filesharing? There are a lot of paid people around to do just that. How did they get that job? How much do they pay you?
Wow that is just ridiculous. What do they think they will achieve by putting good people in jail. That just makes me sympaphise more with the ex admin. Seriously puting 100 people in jail wont stop us. So why do they try. I mean they can put us all in jail but then they will have no customers.
How can someone be so fkn stupid to plead guilty in this case? Even if you’re somehow liable for your WLAN it’s still better than actually being convicted for the real deed.
The problem is that anyone that has enough clue about torrents is probably doing it themselves, anyone not is either working for the other side or incompetent.
Good Luck oinkers, long live file sharing
@27 : “How can someone be so fkn stupid to plead guilty in this case?”
How can you be so fucking stupid to suppose that the accused are stupid enough to plead guilty without good reason and that they’re lawyers are stupid enough to advise them to do that.
@27 “Even if you’re somehow liable for your WLAN it’s still better than actually being convicted for the real deed.”
Seeing as your obviously clueless about the basics of the legal system I’ll explain. An accused’s not guilty plea has nothing to do with whether their found guilty or not – that’s determined by the evidence presented.
If there is a pre-ponderance of evidence against an accused and therefore there is no realistic chance of being found innocent entering a guilty plea is advantageous during sentencing because it shows recognition & remorse for the crime committed. The sentencing judge will usually take this into account.
Please do not have children, I’d hate to see your genes passed onto unfortunate others.
@30 There are too many clueless idiots here as shown by 27 and you are 100% right.
Good look to everyone in the case, I hope it all works out.
Wow, this is riduculous. Oh wow, you gave the internet the new Ludacris album, OMG 25 to life for you. Off with his head! It’s amazingly stupid.
We have at least a million people creating the same crime, they might as well stop and embrace it because they can’t lock us all up, and locking up fellow torrenters isn’t going to scare us, it really just makes us want to do it more.
Pleading guilty is tricky. There should be an option to plead “responsible of the actions but not recognizing a guilt as doing something bad” instead of “guilty”.
@33 “Wow, this is riduculous. Oh wow, you gave the internet the new Ludacris album, OMG 25 to life for you. Off with his head! It’s amazingly stupid.
We have at least a million people creating the same crime, they might as well stop and embrace it because they can’t lock us all up, and locking up fellow torrenters isn’t going to scare us, it really just makes us want to do it more.
”
25 to life?? Hardly, they’ll probably recieve 6 months – 2 years imprisonment – in a low security institution – & some community service.
The application of the law doesn’t work like that either: you can’t just say because many people break the speed limit whilst driving let’s stop enforcing penalties for doing it.
And this doesn’t make me want to do it more – why would you think that other than a foolish aversion to taking risks?
these criminals dont deserve to live
they should be given the lethal injection
“Ellis did not enter a plea” presumably means the prosecution have not submitted their case evidence to the defense. clearly the prosecution have not found an open and shut case of conspiracy to defraud
“All five uploaders were accused of making music albums available on OiNK, and according to insider information, at least four of them pleaded guilty” it is not a big offense to be accused of and presumably the police have chosen the BIG uploaders then their lawyers would tell them the fastest and cheapest way out of the court is to admit guilt of this small offense rather than have their 1,000’s of investigated by the court in fine detail
i wish you good luck Alan. three weeks ago BREIN came against h33t with similar allegations and we are in the swapping letters stage. what happens to you is important to us all
http://www.h33t.com tied to the mast of filesharing
They won’t go to prison as there aren’t any spaces.
“They won’t go to prison as there aren’t any spaces.” (Anonymous)
Don’t be silly…for a crime of this magnitude, they can let someone out for a lesser crime like manslaughter, child molestation, or stealing over $1M.
“Hey! How can I get paid by the RIAA etc. to post negative comments on filesharing? There are a lot of paid people around to do just that. How did they get that job? How much do they pay you?” (James)
It’s simple, just come up with the most ridiculously nasty idiocy you can think of, preferably involving child porn. For every post that gives the RIAA executives a boner, they credit you with the real cost of producing a CD. If you ever reach the cost of postage, they send you whatever’s left.
“There should be an option to plead “responsible of the actions but not recognizing a guilt as doing something bad” instead of “guilty”.” (Foinky)
There is. It’s called nolo contendere, Latin for “I do not wish to contend.”
“And this doesn’t make me want to do it more – why would you think that other than a foolish aversion to taking risks?” (Anonymous)
I think you meant “a foolish addiction to taking risks.” “A foolish aversion to taking risks” is paying buttloads to some fraudulent “anonymizer” who’ll give you up the minute the MAFIAA says boo.
Agree with the fact that a custodial sentence is unlikely.
All that Allan has done at this stage is not enter a plea. I imagine that if a formal caution is on the cards he might be willing to admit guilt. However, having a criminal record of conspiracy to defraud would be the kind of thing most people would be willing to fight to avoid.
There is still a reasonably strong possibilty that the case might die a death. I would love to know how the prosecution are able to justify the delay. There is plenty of case law where cases have been thrown out of court when unreasonable delay has occured.
@35 Wow, upto 2 years imprisonment, seems very harsh when people seeling DVDs and CDs on market stalls for profit in the UK seem to walk free with a slap on the wrist…
@24
1. you have to hand over your soul to them
2. they’ll make you a sweet deal
3. You’ll do the spamming around the net
4. Somehow you get caught for spamming
5. then somehow they forget you so they don’t have to pay you!
6. you have to pay a fine for spamming
7. you bankrupt and have to work for the rest of your life as a slave to pay off the fines
The End
quote: “Good job! Im glad to see these criminal scum going to prison.
A black man will make them his next wife.”
Like he made you his!
This is why I don’t buy music.
good job asshats!
FUCK THE MUSIC INDUSTRY!!!!
the meter of anti-p2p spam has gone OFF THE SCALE in this thread
i am a filesharer, i … am … a … filesharer
fucking dutch government, they need to go
These terrible young people should be hung, drawn, and quartered! How dare they do something with technology that we don’t understand! Why I oughta…
“This is why I don’t buy music.”
————————————–
No. You don’t buy music because you’re cheap and selfish just like all the other file stealers here.
“insider information”?
Eh? It’s a public court hearing.
has anyone forgot the outrage that THE BBC WERE IN THE POLICE CAR AS THEY PULLED UP TO ALAN’S HOUSE, CAMERA’S ROLLING.
THE WHOLE DEBAUCLE SICKENS ME.
GUESS THE ONLY THING LEFT IS THE UNDERGROUND.
HTTP SITES ARE MAKIN LIFE EASY FOR THEM. IDIOTS.
haha stupid “anti p2p” spam people post on a p2p blog .. rofl
lol
they should focus on ppl that rape and that make true crimes
fuking cops hate them all
I totally agree. Lock up the real Criminal. Fact is, the cops are scared of the real criminals. Hey, to make some very good money online, check out
www dot thespidersystem dot ws
It says that they entered pleas. Why does everyone assume that they plead guilty?
because the article has been changed at some point to correct a mistake
waffles for life!
fuck copyright infringement. i just want to get music in peace.
i hope one day OiNK will come back to life and waffles and what will merge with it to make it the best music tracker again
The authorities need to check back into reality.
Something being illegal doesn’t neccesarily make it right or just.
Persecuting people for monetising the sharing of files and translating them
into transactions which in reality never would have occured is absurd in the extreme.
The anti-p2p bunch would be better served to to hang up their hats and go and
join the rest of the world in getting a real job.
Maybe join the financial regulators and focus their efforts on picking apart the activities
of individuals who made real money (e.g. millions of $s) on the backs of normal joes.
Long live the Hydra!!!
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