Trial of OiNK BitTorrent Site Admin Delayed Until 2010
Written by Ernesto on May 15, 2009During October 2007, the popular BitTorrent tracker OiNK was shut down in a joint effort by Dutch and British law enforcement. Four users of the popular BitTorrent tracker have already been sentenced to community service, fines and payment of court costs, but the trial of admin Alan Ellis has now been moved to 2010.
Possibly due to a press blackout, details on the proceedings in the court cases against the OiNK users and admin have been very thin on the ground. Earlier this year we managed to discover that four people who shared music via the tracker barely escaped with their freedom.
The individuals were charged with copyright infringement and sentenced to fines and community service, rather than custodial sentences the prosecution had been pushing for.
Steven Diprose was sentenced to 180 hours community service, and ordered to pay £378 in Court costs. Michael Myers was told to pay a £500 fine. Mark Tugwell has to undertake 100 hours community service and pay £378 Court costs. The fourth uploader, James Garner was sentenced to 50 hours community service and also has to pay £378 Court costs.
What remains are the cases against one other uploader and Alan Ellis, the administrator of OiNK. Unlike other file-sharing related cases, the charges against Ellis are not related to copyright offenses. Instead, he has been charged with “conspiracy to defraud”.
Ellis’ case was scheduled to be heard today at the Teesside Crown Court, but the session didn’t last long as the trial was postponed till January 2010. Due to the press blackout, TorrentFreak was unable to find out whether a reason has been given for the delay.
The OiNK shutdown was an international operation. Codenamed “Operation Ark Royal”, it involved co-ordinated action by both British and Dutch police forces. IFPI and the BPI, two well known anti-piracy organizations, allegedly assisted in gathering the ‘evidence’ that led to the arrests.
The tracker – which served some 180,000 users including NiN frontman Trent Reznor – was shut down but several replacements took over including Waffles.fm and What.cd. The latter developed a community of nearly 100,000 members and recently celebrated the upload of the 500,000th torrent.
Previously: Usenet Community Takes Anti-Piracy Group to Court
Next: Vuze Cashing in on Porn BitTorrent Users
49 Responses
Again? Wow
I can’t believe how lame this is. I cant believe how they’re smearing the holy grail of torrent sites. And guess what: I HAVE DOWNLOADED MORE SINCE THE DEMISE OF OINK.
Congratulations.
What happened to Matthew Wyatt, the 5th Uploader?
Court 5 - sitting at 10:30 AM
HIS HONOUR JUDGE A N J BRIGGS
SITTING CIVIL
NOT BEFORE 02:00 PM
For Mention
T20087573 ELLIS Alan
17M81712407
Order made under Contempt of Court Act 1981 Defendant not required – linked to
T20087606 WYATT Matthew
17M81626208
Order made under Contempt of Court Act 1981 Defendant not required -t/e 1 hour
From courtserve….
From Xhibit….
Court 5 T20087573
T20087606
ALAN ELLIS
MATTHEW WYATT
For Mention – Hearing finished for ALAN ELLIS – 14:26
I remember OiNK back in the day, ahh the good ‘ol days.
But seriously, what is so bad about running a tracker?
http://torrentino.info
Waffles only has 255k torrents :/
This has become ridiculous, even more than it was when it first began. This does not constitute a “speedy” trial while the prosecution pushes back court dates again and again in a futile attempt to gather more ‘evidence’. If it isn’t there, it isn’t there, give it up already.
Just wondering why my comment was removed?? I only said that the OiNK website(s) said the trial was adjourned to 25th Sep. 2009. I wasn’t being arsey just wondering which is right.
Sorry Crabstick, I didn’t mean to do that :)
OiNK.cd is now updated with info about the trial date. There is a hearing September 2009, but we have no idea what the purpose of it…
Now OiNK is a joke :P
Delay Delay Delay LoL.
@Ernesto
Aah OK thanks :P
What could they possibly need more time for? & what are they looking for now? WMD, terrorists, oil…
I bet OiNK admin is happy. All he has to do is show up at court every couple of months for the rest of his life and he’s a free man. He hasnt even been convicted of anything.
I got a feeling the reason everything is being kept quiet is there will be more people in the cross hairs down the road. It may go to the U.S.
@ Torrentia
I thought he was still in prison? Was he released yet?
Pretty sure he’s been released for forever.
“During October 2007, the popular BitTorrent tracker OiNK was shut down”
“Trial of OiNK BitTorrent Site Admin Delayed Until 2010″
————–
This is another farce from the music industry… After of almost 2 years they don’t have any case, and really there doesn’t exist any case.
This case could be taken by a lawyer with balls who could represent to Alan Ellis and starting a trial against the music industry for harrasment.
But obviously, this won’t happen.
Does anyone here have an organization they can do their community service at.
We should hook these guys up.
@17: I wonder if they can do it volunteering at a torrent site.
I actually found out about torrentfreak the day OiNK got shut down searching google for news about it.
@18
yes at a torrent site please :)
Michael Meyers should have killed them. ;)
Im glad to see that the legal community is finally waking up and taking action against those that think stealing things is fine.
I think the shutting down of Oink actually helped to spread things around. It was through hearing about that that I got involved in torrents at all. A heartfelt thanks go to the authorities for doing all of us this magnificent favor.
@22 your just a dumb muppet, if someone buys it and shares it, that is called filesharing not stealing/piracy.
@6
waffles is more about quality than quantity, many of what.cd torrents are transcodes/mislabeled. they also give invites to anyone that enters their irc.
plus, the bigger sites get taken down before the smaller ones ;)
Another proof that private sites aren’t safer than public sites. You still need to take the same pre-caution on a private site vs public site.
why is there a media blackout?
In the UK, the fraud laws are so wide ranging that almost anyone who sells a product could be cosidered guilty of fraud.
Being guilty of conspiracy to fraud would therefore be a matter of whos got the best lawyer :-(
I wish Alan and co the best of luck
Let him go :(
17 May 16, 2009 at 01:59 by Reasoned Mind
Does anyone here have an organization they can do their community service at.
We should hook these guys up.
Community Service does not work like that – You don’t get to choose!
I haven’t bought a single track since the ILLEGAL raid of OINK.
I only support artists directly or by donating to independent labels.
I don’t get why ppl still buy music from major labels.
ri fuckin diculous
fuck the torrents. scene still lives. I dont give a shit if random noob doesnt get to steal his new britney album or shit like that.
LOL…. Maybe U donot know, some men are hoo king up with those se xy mo dels on the interesting cl ub ____Seeking Tall C o M___ , whatever U are fans or not, just have a try. You will find much f u n
Could work in the defendants favour as if a trial goes on too long then they can be acquitted.
Its criminal that a state can hang a man’s freedom in the balance for so long. If possible, I’d really hope torrentfreak could get an interview with Alan just to find out what things have been like for him since the shutdown – has he been able to work and/or enjoy life while constantly awaiting trial for 2+ years? What his take on the delays is.
Honestly, what relevant evidence will show up by January 2010 that hasn’t already existed since 2007?
OiNK is dead!
Music was so good it would make your tail curl.
it never can be replaced with what.cd, waffels.fm or what ever. Deep down it still hurts and there is no medicine to take the pain away.
RIP OiNK’s Pink Palace!
@25
you are mistaken sir, what has very good quality and quantity, and has the most flac/ lossless out of any private site. also, it’s easier to go after the smaller sites with less of a population than a growing community. :)
^ Tell that to OiNK. What will go down before waffles, easilly.
@37
its easier to prosecute a smaller population of users in a community than a bigger one like what, easily.
OiNK was too easy. What killed OiNK only makes What? stronger.
I would PAY to read an interview with Alan.
The man is a legend.
He developes the BEST music promotion tool in the world (STILL!).
He developes the BEST high-quality music aquisition tool in the world (STILL!).
He developes one of the BEST audiophile commuity in the world.
And he’s been on bail for longer than most people in the BPI have kept there jobs!
Why?
Because of the shitstorm it would cause if he was given the not-guilty verdict.
I for one would IMMEDIATLY open up a tracker if i knew i could do so legally in the UK.
I feel so sorry for people reading this with an interest in music who didn’t have an OiNK account.
My knowledge of music, how it’s encoded, the fine detail of good quality sources, the hardware to listen to it on, etc etc – all of it stems from OiNK.
My love for jazzy intrumental hip-hop, classical and blues was non-existant untill OiNK.
OiNK. Was. Music.
If i was a millionaire i’d spend every penny getting that man the justice and more importantly the recognition he deserves.
Fucking national hero IMHO.
This is frustrating how this keeps getting delayed. I just want to see some closure to this site’s history. My guess is that the prosecution is discovering they have no evidence to prove anything and will keep delaying this for several years and then quietly drop the case.
is someone collecting donations for alan? we should do so for his bail….
Yeah, send your donations for OiNK c/o TPB or, better still, Jon Newton, at least you won’t have to worry about whether the money used for a good purpose.(sarcasm)
Unfortunately, private tracker, commercial purpose = criminal.
The recording industries, BPI, IFPI, RIAA, FACT and MPAA all seem to be getting the upper hand through easy pickings. If they hadn’t got a case against this guy, they wouldn’t have got an adjournment. Probably just waiting for a judge to become available with sufficient technical knowledge to understand the issues.
Shouting like love struck teens deprived of their beloved wank-mags isn’t going to cut it with corrupt politicans, an uncaring public and an avaricious music/filmsoftware industry. The best bet is to give this one up as a (sadly) lost cause and donate to the creation of new sites.
The biggest weapon the file sharers have is resilience and numerical superiority. It takes a couple of weeks to set up a new tracker, it takes then months or years to get their “cases” through the court system.
Simple.
They are most likely expecting to have much more tougher, and for the prosecution simpler, laws in place by 2010 that will allow them to freely rape anyone of their choosing, with or without true reason.
Guy Fawkes, we need you NOW.
“Unfortunately, private tracker, commercial purpose = criminal.”
Huh? Did you ever have an OiNK account?
I never gave OiNK a penny for anything :P
Thinking about it, i’m not even sure the site had adverts :/
There was nothing commercial here at all. Sure you could donate however much you wanted and in return get a little donater’s emblem next to your name….
You did NOT get:
A wider selection of torrents.
The ability to download more without sharing to the same ratio as a non-donater.
Or anything torrent related other than access to the ‘advanced search’ feature, which allowed you to search by similar artists.
What I find criminal is that, as far as I know, they are still holding his bank accounts and any sources of income hostage.
Didn’t they also get him fired from his job too?
The court systems would run much more smoothly if pirates ran them.
4 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.