OiNK Investigation Seeks Identities and Activities of Users
Written by enigmax on October 23, 2007OiNK, one of the world’s most popular trackers has been shutdown. Now, in the hours immediately following the closure, the site is responding but displaying an ominous message indicating an investigation into the site’s users has begun.
The message currently on the OiNK page is as follows:
Many of OiNK’s users have been enquiring if their details are safe on the site. The message: “A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site’s users” will not exactly fill them with confidence.
However, everyone in the BitTorrent world will be familiar with the propaganda put out by anti-piracy organizations and many will be familiar with a similar situation a few years ago when the LokiTorrent tracker was closed and seemingly none of the users were tracked down. Fear, uncertainty and doubt - it’s all part of the anti-p2p strategy but it’s hugely doubtful that 180,000 users will be pursued, it’s just not cost effective and most are scattered around the globe.
According to whois.sc, the visitors to the site are split: United States 50.7%, United Kingdom 7%, Canada 6%, Sweden 3.2%, Germany 2.7% and Netherlands at just 1.9%. Although of questionable accuracy, these figures should give at least an idea of the trend on the site.
Clearly the statement on the homepage is designed to scare all the ex-OiNK members back into the record shops and not let them think it’s safe to join another tracker. That strategy has been tried before (You Can Click But You Can’t Hide) and it doesn’t work. Additionally, more and more people are choosing to protect their privacy with VPN services such as VPNTunnel and Relakks, finding that a small investment is worth the peace of mind in the long run.
So who are the players in this OiNK takedown?
Most people know about the IFPI - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. This organization says it represents the worldwide interests of the recording industry with the backing of nearly 1,500 record businesses in 75 countries. Its main aim is to fight piracy.
The BPI - British Phonographic Industry is similar to the RIAA in the US. It’s made up of hundreds of music businesses and fronted by the ‘big four’ - EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner. Created in 1973, its stated main aim is to combat piracy.
The FIOD-ECD - Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police is a worrying inclusion to the list of people involved in the closure of OiNK. FIOD-ECD is a Dutch government agency dedicated to chasing down people alleged to be involved in fiscal, financial and economic fraud - usually major criminals. With these people involved, getting access to records from hosts wouldn’t have proven too difficult - FIOD-ECD are not just another BREIN, they have some serious powers.
People familiar with the ShareConnector and Releases4u cases in the Netherlands will remember the involvement of FIOD-ECD. The case took over 2 years to come to court and the result was a complete failure for them. The admin of ShareConnector got off completely and a couple of small fines (around $350) were handed out to the admins of Releases4U for uploading copyright material. Additionally, FIOD-ECD failed to provide enough evidence to prove ShareConnector was involved in copyright infringement nor enough to prove that either organization was criminal in nature.
Many people will be keeping their fingers crossed that the progress against OiNK mirrors this.
Following a 2 year investigation (or 3 month investigation, depending on the source) which involved Interpol, Police are insisting that OiNK was a pay site. Members were given the option to donate but this insistence that OiNK was some sort of criminal network where people paid to be a member is clearly untrue but it’s likely that this is the reason the real police (as opposed to the ‘copyright police’) and FIOD-ECD are involved.
Jeremy Banks of the IFPI said: “This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure.”
Yes it was Jeremy.
Previously: OiNK.cd Servers Raided, Admin Arrested
Next: OiNK Admin Released From Custody
174 Responses
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Damn! No more oink? How the heck am I supposed to get invited to Demonoid?
SANTA NEEDS OINK!!!!
No presents for you this year. Bad IFPI. Bad.
Thanks for writing the only good article about this
[quote comment="193407"]Thanks for writing the only good article about this[/quote]
Haha, so true. OMG, imagine if the BBC article actual does more to advertise the site rather than make it seem like a bad place.
Not wanting to start a false rumour or anything but after browsing some IRC channels i noticed a news comment on 1
“as we speak developers are working hard on http://www.moo.me.uk”
keep your eyes open
[quote comment="193388"]Yea, pay site my ass. You donated if you wanted to to help server costs & site maintenance. As far as I can tell this all is happening in the UK, nothing about the US. WOOT![/quote]
no shit … US is the heart of all this shit… of course your not going to hear anything about it.
A pay site…….
Anyone know if the developers/moderators of OiNK are also going to have problems with authorities? Are they hanging out in IRC somewhere right now?
I have been going on now for the last few months trying to tell people they should leave Oink because of the shit about to happen. I just love it when people ignore me. But hey, though’s of you caught in the investigation and prosicuted … sucks to be you. As for the admins. Thoughs fucking idiots/assholes were ignorant when I tried to warn them about the raid only weeks befor the actual raid. Their words to me were “Look another troll trying more scare tactics.” I was then banned from the server. You know… I do feel that the pirate community does contribute a lot of things to the world in making it better as anti piracy groups only want to stop the evolution due to their greed and hate towards people smarter and at time more intelligent. But due to OinK’s admins ignorance, another site will be shutdown and the fight against the anti-piracy groups gets a little weaker due to this defeat.
Mabby the next group will find it in them to believe their members instead of being dumb ass’s.
Oh enigmax, carefull with what your reporting on… shit just might come back to bite you in the ass.
The record industry got THOUSENDS of euro’s from me BECAUSE OF OINK.
I - like many others - do buy their cds if they are worth it and I found countless of bands and cds I would never had even heard of on OiNK and eventually bought them.
But you know what? fuck them. I’m not buying any of their over priced cd’s anymore sucks for the artists but I’ve had it I’m not buying shit from record companies anymore.
They say we hurt the artists by downloading music? hah what a joke. If anything they are the once that really hurt the artists with over pricing CD’s/DVD’s and other media trying to force us to have them decide where and how many times we play our bought music.
Would be nice if the artists would put some pressure on the record companies they are the main reason they are losing A LOT of money.
[quote comment="193418"]Not wanting to start a false rumour or anything but after browsing some IRC channels i noticed a news comment on 1
“as we speak developers are working hard on http://www.moo.me.uk”
keep your eyes open[/quote]
OMG, THAT WOULD BE AMAZING!!! I knew there was a message in their title all along!
Its a sad day for music. The “news” that is coming out about this shows the propaganda that the government is putting out. Its bullshit.
Pirate Bay guys: If you’re out there, pleeeaaasse save oink!
yeah ditto above, this article was very informative, put most of my immediate concerns to rest.
what a sad, sad day.
long live oink
I wonder if anyone told the IFPI that not only is wasting police time in a purely civil matter a criminal offense in the UK (3 years I believe), but that an IP is NO PROOF of a crime taking place in the first place. Our cousins in the US saw to that in the courts.
Secondly, Dutch law doesn’t apply in the UK. The same as British law doesn’t apply in Sweden (see TPB legal threats for more) and neither does US law apply ANYWHERE other than the United States.
Thirdly, the cost alone to the British taxpayer for something like this when PLY quite rightly says:
“Isn’t there a serial killer on the loose that needs to be caught?”
Quite right. If you’re a serial killer we’ll give you 3 years. Use P2P and we’ll not only try and take you for every penny, we’ll label you a criminal and have you sent away for 5 - 10 years for trumped up charges and political capital.
Saito,
You aren’t the first I’ve seen say such, but keep in mind that most of these artists are:
1. Rich and don’t give a fuck
2. Ordered by the Companies to prosecute or they would be sued for attempting to assist piracy.
3. Told that their money isn’t coming in as much due to piracy on the internet when they are really being robbed by their contract holder.
4. Too busy buying more shit with their millions of dollars for them selfs then assisting the world with the crap going on because they are too conceded to help others.
Hopefully that gives people an idea of what a good portion of artists really are. Their are the few that may not be as stated above, but unfortunately the news and government groups choose to profile “sharing” members of the cyber world as thief’s and criminals, So I choose to profile artists and record companies as greedy selfish fucking pigs that need to get a firm beat down in hopes to beat some since into them.
Satio, if you think the record industry cares about the lost sales from a couple disgruntled bit torrent users, you’re an idiot. No matter how many ways you deny it, most people that used OiNK, especially since it was such quality (lossless, etc…) never went and bought the album after downloading it. The piracy they saved far outweighs the sales lost. Just because they’re jerks doesn’t mean they’re stupid.
OiNK will be missed, I really hope a successor comes up soon.
ill miss oink, but those admins were fucking douchebags
its bellends like you lot openly blagging names on sites like this that draws there attention to it stfu please keep it underground .
This is why I’m glad that I NEVER bought CDs, even from bands I liked. Saw them live and bought t-shirts, yes. But CDs? No.
The prevailing philosophy on OiNK seemed to be that if you like something you should buy the CD. Now a whole lot of people are going to reconsider that. Supporting the artists is great, but if you support these anti-piracy crooks as well, you’re not helping anyone. And a larger portion of the CD price goes to them.
im fucking pissed that it got closed down, i was only the site for about 6 months, and it was the shit, had every single thing i wanted. But if the moo thing is true im gone keep my eyes open for it.
[quote comment="193454"]Pirate Bay guys: If you’re out there, pleeeaaasse save oink![/quote]
Don’t go begging TPB for help as they still have their hands full with SuprNova and the current investigation going on about them. Keep in mind that should TPB fail then the basis of all the fighting we are doing will only leave us all fucked.
Is there anyway to donate to the poor dude arrested?
I sent a message to the people at thepiratebay to put a fund raiser up at ifpi.com which they are sitting on.
Sadly i doubt that would happen tho.
@ “not good…”
I fall into that boat too. What will canceling my paypal account do?
As a former OiNK member i can tell you that taking down this site will only hurt the recording industry. If everyone had to pay for every song they wanted to listen to no one could afford it, leaving people with far less interest in music in general, and a much narrower taste as well. Having access to a site like Oink on helped to expand the member’s musical horizons, and create a massive grass roots fanbase for music of all kinds in general.
Don’t worry people, there will be something coming back that is even better. They will never be able to stop this. The ONLY downside to this is the couple months of downtime and having to restart your ratio over….
Long live freedom on the net, anonymity, and power to the masses.
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