Police Extend OiNK’s Bail Date Once Again
Written by Ernesto on February 04, 2008Three months ago, the popular private BitTorrent tracker OiNK was effectively shut down in a joint effort by Dutch and British law enforcement. Today, the bail date for OiNK admin Alan Ellis has been extended for the second time, until the 6th of May.
OiNK was considered by many to be the best BitTorrent music tracker the world has ever seen. With 180,000 members it was without a doubt one of the most popular private BitTorrent trackers. OiNK hosted hundreds and thousands of torrents and tracked over a million peers, which made it more popular than most public trackers.
Jeremy Banks, Head of the IFPI’s Internet Anti-Piracy Unit described it differently, as he said at the time: “OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online. 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.”
Among other things, the police claimed that OiNK was a money machine, and that Alan was making hundreds of thousands of pounds. However, everyone knows that OiNK was free to use and this fact was backed up by Trent Reznor, the frontman of Nine Inch Nails: “If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn’t the equivalent of that in the retail space right now.”
The IFPI and BPI did not only misinform the police, they also hijacked the OiNK.cd domain and displayed an ominous message indicating an investigation into the site’s users had begun. These propagandistic threats were supposed to scare former OiNK members, and they succeeded in this until OiNK reclaimed the domain.
With today’s extension, the speculation about potential charges continues. At the moment it remains unclear what evidence the police are trying to find, but I assume they have figured out by now that the site is not as evil as the IFPI and BPI wanted them to believe.
To be continued.
Previously: IFPI Forces Danish ISP to Block The Pirate Bay
Next: Detailed Piracy Stats For Every Oscars Nominated Movie Since 2003
146 Responses
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Like many others on here, I used Oink as a sample house of music that if was worthy, I would later purchase. I discovered so many great bands on there. If it wasn’t for Oink I never would have found Saltillo, Folium and many other triphop/downtempo albums that I have now bought.
Without oink as a consumer safety net, I no longer feel comfortable buying CD’s on a whim or because I like one song.
As stated, the ‘fakedown’ of oink has now limited my CD purchases and anything I do buy now comes directly from ebay /half.com
10/23 is a day that as a music lover I have still never recovered from. Oink was THE greatest torrent site ever created with the greatest music fans ever populating it! Good luck Alan, they’ve got nothing, everyone knows it!
[quote comment="281499"]OiNK was horrid.
….. ……
anything you could get there you could get from any good ftp topsite.[/quote]
I dont think you were a member.
OINK had the greatest collection of vinylrips, collectors items, etc.
A lot of them ripped in FLAC or in V0. Not the lame (:-)) V2 and 4 sure not with the terrible tagging of the scenekiddies.
Kill the underscores.
The only good thing about the demise of OiNK is how I was accepted into the open arms of its successors. While not quite what OiNK was, I have still received more music in the last few months than I would ever predict.
[quote comment="281511"]Never Forget & Help Support The Cause!
http://www.cafepress.com/neverforgetoink
Thanks - Becky[/quote]
That is just downright lame. Who gets the money? Fucking parasites.
[quote comment="281341"][quote comment="281337"][quote comment="281315"][quote comment="281297"]“hundreds AND thousands of torrents”? Which is it?[/quote]
Both, obviously. The first presupposes the second…[/quote]
I think the correct turn of phrase is hundreds OF thousands…[/quote]
no…its a saying in england. The second guy is correct
Unfortunately i can see him getting found guilty, uk seem a bit crap at this sort of thing…[/quote]
You English and your creating illogical sayings. Why would you want to presuppose? Just get to the bloody point. ;)
And by the way it’s ‘uk seems a bit crappy this kind of thing’
And by the way it’s ‘uk seems a bit crappy at this kind of thing’
Oink was the one stop shop for anything music. Wanted an unreleased album in FLAC there you go, wanted it in V0 it was there along with 1 or 2 other formats. It was a great place to be. It was better than any scene any friendly sharing site ever. It truly made me sad when i was awoken with the bad news.
@55 - No one does.
Riddle me this.. if oink’s assets are frozen and he needs money for attorney fees, why doesn’t he sell the tracker source and/or rights to oink.cd? This package is worth thousands.
Rather than relying on donations and the like, he could be self-sufficient and do himself some good. There’s no law, criminal or civil, for selling source code — so it would be prime bidding material for eBay.
Just thinking outside the box, I guess…
[quote comment="281499"]OiNK was horrid.
the uppity mods and admins had no right to be as arrogant as they were; all they did was run a site that ripped off the scene.
anything you could get there you could get from any good ftp topsite.[/quote]
agree, fuck oink!
LMAO, every one that doesn’t like Oink is obviously NOT a music lover, or only listens to the current billboards.
@ 61, Shall I send you a list of albums you don’t have at your top sites?
Poor Alan :(
Firstly, go away you stupid little scene children, your tiny brains and thick skulls cannot comprehend what OiNK was all about. If you hate Bittorrent so much, why do you use this site? Go away.
It’s quite amusing how the antics of the IFPI and BPI have backfired so spectacularly, as opposed to scaring music sharers off and destroying a popular torrent site, they have suceeded in making the community as determined and resilient as ever.
I guess we owe the IFPI and the BPI for causing new torrent sites to spring up, for giving torrent site ops the confidence to pursue legal battles against retched organisations such as theirs, and for opening the eyes of open minded labels and artists to the fact that Bittorrent is the way forward. For this, thank you!
Oh yeah, and good luck Alan, not that you need it, you know how incompetent the authorities are with regards to this matter.
Love you oink! Good Luck Alan!
[quote comment="281957"]And by the way it’s ‘uk seems a bit crappy this kind of thing’[/quote]
Not at all. The word ‘crap’ can be a noun, verb, _or_ adjective.
i.e. Your grasp of the english language is rather crap. =]
[quote comment="281957"]You English and your creating illogical sayings. Why would you want to presuppose? Just get to the bloody point. ;)[/quote]
OK. Your composition is almost as bad as your grammar. To the point enough?
HTH HAND kthxbai =]
[quote comment="281505"]No way dude, you are an idiot.
There were sooo many albums on oink that no scene group had ever released and you certainly couldn’t find on a good topsite. Plus, it’s not very easy to get topsite axx.
epic fail.[/quote]
You tool. OPP has user rips on it… do scene topsites? I dont think so. Hence, fail. I have ripped and uploaded albums elsewhere that no scene site has ever got it’s hands on.
[quote] OiNK was horrid.
the uppity mods and admins had no right to be as arrogant as they were; all they did was run a site that ripped off the scene.
anything you could get there you could get from any good ftp topsite.
[/quote]
Completely incorrect. There were many albums that came to oink before anyone from the “scene” knew they existed. Oink was well known for having rippers with connections, and even artists uploading pre-releases and such. The “scene” had nothing on oink.
No…. i think you’ll find its lame.
i miss Oink please come back soon we all miss this great site and we all wait huge back
#6 STFU
Anyway oink was awesome
Everyone should turn back to vinyl and start buying that music medium - since the only ones that will prosper are the real american heroes - the local record store owners.
I’m no legal expert but from what I do know they don’t usually extend your bail if they have lack of evidence. It’s usually the exact opposite, they extend it if they have evidence you might be a flight risk or whatever.
In a case like this bail doesn’t have much to do with anything about being charged with crimes or not. They don’t need to keep in jail to charge him, they can let him go and still charge him with a crime way down the road.
Sounds to me like the have some type of evidence he is a flight risk or something along those lines. Keep in mind they have to convince a judge why they want to extend bail and no judge is going to extend bail without a good reason.
Anyway in summary i think it’s the opposite of what some of you may think. Sounds to me like they do have evidence, hence the reason they were allowed to extend the bail.
Best music and apps tracker in the world I had invite and game them to mates and they loved me for it.
its pissed me off when reports that u had to pay a monthly fee that was total rubbish I donated £10 and it was money well gifted.
hope everthing goes well for Oink and it “staff”
Cheers
PBoy
You all know that nothing like this will ever stop ripping/copying/sharing world. There has been so many busts and shut downs and it surely will happen randomly in the future.
But all in all these agencies and labels, etc.. are powerless in their effort to “combat piracy” All they do is waste money doing this and the sharing world is ALWAYS a few steps ahead as a whole, ever since the “copy” function was created on a computer the sharing has begun, and it will never end. Groups of pppl numbering in what? 100s at the most? Create these “clever” little “copyguard” scemes to protect their media, but you have to realize there will then be thousands or more ppl accross the globe working to break it, do we succeed!! of course! always!
The people will do what the people want to do… and there are MILLIONS and MILLIONS who download everyday without any remorse. I can guarantee that piracy of all forms will continue to grow exponentially along with the internet itself.
It all comes simply comes down to adaptation of the industries to what the people want, if they continue they will fail miserably, plain and simple and we will still prevail
There is still a very strong community out there that made up Oink, and most of these people have their libraries that made up oink on their computers, so even that is not totally gone and there are plenty of other high quality sites that you will find it, only now a lot of ppl are anger and have no reason to not upload!
Keep doing all you do online! long live Oink and his awesome model!
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