OiNK Down, Norwegian BitTorrent Trackers Next
Written by enigmax on October 24, 2007With the BitTorrent world spinning on its heels after the shock takedown of the huge OiNK tracker, there are now indications that the shutdowns may continue. According to the lawyer who lost against ‘DVD Jon’, next stop is Norway and raids are imminent.
Yesterday, the OiNK BitTorrent tracker was raided and shutdown, not by the MPAA but by real life, bona fide police, working hand in hand with industry association, the IFPI. The war against BitTorrent - usually played out on the civil law arena - has suddenly found itself in the criminal domain. The rules have changed.
With the whole BitTorrent community asking themselves what comes next, a clear indicator has come from a lawyer who works for the industry prosecuting file-sharers:
Norway is next and raids are imminent.
Espen Tøndel is a Norwegian lawyer well known for his legal defeat against ‘DVD Jon‘. He is currently working with the Norwegian branch of the IFPI and MPAA.
Tøndel says the Norwegian police are prepared and ready to carry out raids against Norwegian sites. Everything is in place.
When asked to identify the sites, Tøndel refused to elaborate other than to say that the investigation has been underway for some time and that enough names and evidence has already been gathered to make prosecutions in several cases.
When questioned about the possible fate of Norwegian members of OiNK specifically, nothing further was added other than to stress the close co-operation between British, Dutch and Norwegian police.
Tøndel also speculates on who might be prosecuted if the OiNK database is available to police. His thoughts range from suggesting people who upload and downloaded a lot might be in trouble, right through to ‘random individuals’. Or maybe there is another possibility?
Maybe the police don’t have usable lists.
According to the article, a source has stated that the OiNK membership list was not only encrypted, but also equipped with a ’self-destruct’ type mechanism which relied on a regular signal to continue in ‘OFF’ mode.
Although unconfirmed, this situation would be of some comfort to OiNK’s 180,000 members.
Previously: Why Are The IFPI and BPI Allowed To Hijack OiNK?
Next: P2PKids: Because We Care About Sharing
200 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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Let’s say you write a book.
Someone buys one copy of of your book, makes a bunch of copies of it and gives a free copy to anyone who wants it.
Chances are very good that at least some of those people would have bought the book had they not been given a free copy.
So, no–it’s not exactly the same as stealing a CD from the store, but it is depriving an author or musician of income that they would have otherwise received. Sure, sometimes a lot of that money goes to a record company, but the author/musician would probably rather get $0.50 than $0.00.
I can appreciate the argument that OiNK had a lot of out-of-print material, but I am sure that there were plenty of people downloading stuff that they could have easily bought, but many just wanted to get stuff for free and don’t care about the musicians despite the cries of liberating music from the RIAA. The RIAA is a straw-man that has been used to justify ripping people off.
Also, I can assure you that many independent musicians (such as myself) are not thrilled at the idea of someone downloading their music and never paying for it. Sure, there are some who are happy to give everything away for free, but that’s their choice. Musicians should post their albums up on their websites in some sort of streaming format to let people preview it and decide if they like it. If they want the MP3s or a CD, then buy it directly from the artist. If you like someone’s music enough to download it, you should pay for it. This is fair.
Let’s assume that mr.musiclover’s claims are right. Then actually it’s the big corporations that are stealing from the muscians.
- By not having been more flexible in shaping the music industry’s distribution methods on time.
-By trying to obstruct any positive force that is trying to look at a useful and meaningful alternative to the current way royalty are paid to artists…
- By not giving the consumers what they want: decently priced good quality downloads. Without DRM.
What is the real problem?
A bunch of pricks in way too expensive offices realising that they have to change now that it is already too late.
THOSE are the guys that are stealing from the muscians.
If THOSE idiots would have had any vision, besides trying to sell us autotune-crap-poor-excuse-for-a-singer-titty-wiggling-drug-addict’s records they would have given us drm-free lossless downloads at a decent price with a choice that would be as wide as seen on a site like uhhmm.. OINK.
Thanks for your attention.
I’m norwegian and I visit the site that the article was posted on occasionally and in my opinion it’s of poor quality and I wouldn’t trust their supposed sources. It’s a tabloid for technology-news, with little insight and mostly just re-hashed articles from other sites designed to get hits.
As for Espen Tøndel he has tried to scare people before but nothing has ever come of it.
Oink will be missed. They had the most obscure music. You could find 60s garage that was ripped from out of print vinyl that was beautiful. There were numerous musicians getting their stuff on there and getting their name out.
What is stopping a pay for legal version of a thriving music community like this? A: The big labels seeking control. The community model was/is the best ever…
nice troll Music lover :D
you managed to take over the whole tread for a while, back there, respect. (lol)
But now back to the topic: Norway and torrent sites.
And that translation was gold as well..
This is were conspiracy begins…
They already seem to have the right to say that you were thinking of doing something even if they have no proof. So … lets put our heads together and see what interesting links will come from this.
also, for an example, if i were an aspiring artist (i am, just not music) i would want my stuff seen as much as possible. Small artitst cannot get onto itunes without paying apple, and cannot reasonably have albums distributed all over the nation, and moreso the world. I could have people download my music all they want, and if they like it they can go to my website (which they would have never heard of otherwise) and pay me for a copy of my cd, or a legit download, or whatever. Or they could come see me when i tour, pay me $45 that goes directly to me instead of paying $15 that i will MAYBE see $1 of.
“Small artitst cannot get onto itunes without paying apple”
You can get your music on iTunes through either CDBaby or Tunecore. You don’t pay Apple. They pay you.
Even if there was a “self-destruct” mechanism, it won’t work because investigators won’t boot the original computers during their investigation. Hard drives will be mirrored and examined with forensic software that will not harm original data. Encryption might help if they weren’t sloppy with passwords. And by sloppy, I mean any cached or deleted password string that can still be scraped off the hard drive could be used to attack an encrypted file or database. I don’t mean to be grim, but that’s just how these technologies work.
I had an oink account too, and while I am lucky that I only used it to read a few forum posts (hardly illegal), I know this sucks for everyone. If you have reason to believe that you could be targeted, please take emergency steps now to protect yourself and your users while you still can.
The normal forensic procedure is to unplug a computer to prevent changes or “self-destruct” type mechanisms from having a chance to run, so if you have an encrypted partition, this would be a good way to prevent anyone from accessing it after it is turned off. Passwords should be remembered because paperwork can also be seized. You might also consider adding a self-destruct script if it is not shut down using a special method, in case they decide to take that route (don’t accidentally trip it yourself!). Be creative, but remember that it can take hours to wipe large drives. Chances are you only have a few minutes, so choose your targets appropriately - you have to physically overwrite files. You should probably also take extra steps to encrypt all of your backups. No point in having everything else secured and your backups in cleartext.
Good luck everyone. P2P will continue despite these setbacks, but that’s little comfort for anyone facing legal trouble. Stick in there and do what you have to.
[quote comment="194768"]that dude looks a like Eichamn![/quote]
Adolf Eichmann?
I don’t recommend attempting to encrypt your data as an attempt to evade investigators (if it comes to that). There will be tell-tale signs that the data has been tampered with. The last thing you need is “obstruction of justice” added to your rap sheet.
It’s not obstruction for you to encrypt your own data. Suppose someone broke into your home and stole your computer while you were away. Encryption is a totally normal way to protect yourself.
just threw a few bones to oinkybank.com
it pisses me off when capitalistic stooges like musiclover equal sharing to stealing. sharing is copyright infringement.
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a person copies a file, that he would have never purchased, has any theft occured? Was someone harmed? Did someone lose anything?
Really, if someone stole his neighbor’s car, so he no longer had possession, there is a material loss.
The entire argument of media download PRESUMES that there is a LOSS (of revenue). Something can only be considered “theft” if someone loses something. They continue to throw out HUGE monetary losses because people are “stealing” this media. However, most people that truly want something (a CD or a movie) will still buy it. But the mass of people who download (copy) a file, there is NO LOSS to any party, since that person would have NEVER bought the media in the first place… so NO LOSS (THEFT) OCCURED.
Nobody lost anything. The original file is still held by the original party. No money loss occured because the person who obtained a loss-free copy would have never purchased it in the first place.
Every single band i have ever met and talked to, ranging from the local ones, to the huge mtv bands has said the same thing.
They would way rather have you “steal” the music from the internet, and just have you come to a show and pick up a shirt. Selling records doesn’t make them money, its all in the concerts and other merchandise
yea, whoever wrote the copyright law has there shit fucked up.
Music Lover..i’m not going to argue whether or not sharing files its legal or not…so they got one site…not much of change by doing so…
But you seem to want to defend the musician…are you lobbying for them? do you know they get the less percentage when it comes to CD sales?
and that is why they have to tour and get sponsors..like pepsi, skin care..etc…to supplement a life style that the average joe does not have…
but when musicians need to sue to get out of a contract with a label company…and wonder why? because they are stealing from them…if you are going to defend musicians do it all the way…not just bitching at a forum…whats the point…
boohoo we are going to get cought…what an impact your words make..file sharing will never die…its the future dude…its that simple…
but this label companies fight anything that might affect them..they did it when the cassette player/recorder cam around..VHS Tapes..etc…just giant chickens…they may win some battles…but never the war…
Adios…
“If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a person copies a file, that he would have never purchased, has any theft occured? Was someone harmed? Did someone lose anything?”
In theory, if they never would have bought the music anyway, then no–no one gets hurt. Of course, not EVERY download is a lost sale, but many of them certainly are.
If someone was planning to buy a book, but you give them a bootlegged copy of the same book, the author loses that income.
If you like someone’s music enough to want to download it, most musicians would prefer that you pay them for it. Especially, if they are independent. Major label artists get advance royalties for their records, so their relaxed attitude toward file-sharing is misleading. They already got most of the money that they will ever get, so what do they care? That is usually not the case for an independent artist.
It is a myth that most artists make money from touring. In many cases, they are PAYING to be included on tours. Many larger bands are now demanding fees for the privilege of opening for them, and opening shows for larger bands is traditionally how smaller bands get new fans. Even if they are touring on their own, they still have to quit their day jobs. They still have to pay the bills, they have to pay for gas and whatever else comes up. People don’t realize how hard it is to make any money on the road, because they are used to seeing bands that sell out big clubs or even arenas.
This stealing conversation’s going nowhere fast. Some people think everything’s cut and dry in their own views… in fact, most people do. What one sees as a heinous act might be viewed by another as a noble cause, or some such thing (I’m out of decent analogies right now, I think it’s the torrent withdrawal). It’s not like breaking the law has ever been purely a good or evil thing, so meh. You violate copyright laws (which is all it is, legal-wise, by the way, since stealing in no way equates to sharing legally purchased products in any way and is therefore a moot argument), whatever. There’s no getting around it, since the laws are written. It’s simply your choice to comply or not. I, for one, don’t. Not for any sort of moral standard or sense of rebellion: I simply know what I intend to do, and getting music falls into place with that. If corporate doesn’t like it, then I just have to make sure I don’t get stupid and get caught. If you don’t like it, that’s cool, I’m glad you have an opinion. Don’t bastardize me for it. Later.
Aren’t copyright laws supposed to prevent the theft of ideas or concepts? What I mean is that if I wrote a book and used an entire paragraph/chapter from say a Stephen King novel without citing him and/or paying royalties, that would be copyright infringement correct? Or maybe if I was in a band, and we wanted to record a song by Black Sabbath, I would have to pay royalties for rights to record and reproduce their music right? As far as I know, that is what copyright protects.
I think there’s a huge gray area when it comes to distributing digital copies of music. We need to decide what a copyright REALLY protects. The original artists right to distribute their material, or the right of the artist to receive credit or payment for the use of their material, or something else entirely.
I think this whole situation says a lot about how we as nations allow our governments to respond to the bitching and moaning of big business. Why are we letting them have such enormous influence over our supposedly democratic rulers?
“British and Dutch police today shut down the world’s biggest source of illegal pre-release chart albums and arrested a 24-year old man in an operation coordinated between Middlesbrough and Amsterdam. ” That’s from BPI’s web site. So, they’re touting that they got the bad-guy pre-releasers. Hmmm. So soon after Springsteen’s big release. I smell Sony busy at work!
[quote comment="194745"]Good. You’re all fucking criminals. Just because you hide behind a computer screen doesn’t mean you’re not a thief. Instant karma.[/quote]
I’m assuming you’re the same troll as Musician, whose posts litter the first OiNK takedown article? Don’t you have anything better to do – like jerk off to photos of Mitch Bainwol? Your comments are about as welcome as Mel Gibson’s dad at a Bar Mitzvah.
Now, kindly fuck off.
You can not steal what you can’t touch. Stealing involves taking a physical item away from its owner; the owner loses the item forever. A copy, authorized or not, never destroys the original. If you make an illegal photograph of a famous painting, the painting remains intact. We could argue why it is illegal to take a picture on the first place, and who is benefiting. If i show the picture for free outside of the gallery, am i depriving the gallery of funds because the people are no longer going in and paying the fee? Should we defend the gallery owner at the expense of not letting the masses free access to the culture? Those with money will go to the gallery anyway, because its not the same experience. Same occurs with music; if your band is worth it, people will buy the disc and go to their concerts no matter if its available on the net for free, or if they sold their souls to a major label. P2P real issue for you “Music Lover”, is the fact that now small Indies are at the same level of the big fat man. In fact, the more the technology advances, the less is needed for the middle fat man to exist anymore. That is your real problem, you are scared because your obsolete business model is going down; and no lawyer and police armies will stop that. For each server you take down, 10 more will surface. For each technology you poison, 10 new and more robust ones will appear. Anonymous p2p is improving, and your actions can only help it even more. Thanks for your existence, but get real, your job is not going to last. Just a message for all “MediaDefenders” and all the hypocrite mercenaries of the corporations. It is a matter of numbers: you are few, we are millions.
pretty soon they arent going to teach sharing in pre-school anymore because it might be considered stealing.
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