Uploads to torrent sites, claiming to be from the owners of the material are not unheard of, but are also not common. When it has happened, it’s been to public sites, and generally a hoax, which makes people all the more wary when accounts appear, claiming to be ‘official’ or from the people behind it.

However, TorrentFreak has verified that the accounts in question, ‘NIN’ on both waffles and what, and ‘NINOfficial’ on The Pirate Bay, are indeed accounts belonging to the band’s representatives.

“last night our website had to go down for maintenance for a little while due to the incredible amount of traffic and downloads, and we linked directly to our Pirate Bay torrent as a way for people to get the music while we were offline.” Rob Sheridan, Art Director for NIN told TorrentFreak, adding “I noticed our official torrent of Ghosts I was in the top 10 of all torrents on The Pirate Bay last night.”

“We use torrents ourselves, and we know that most NIN fans are tech-savvy and familiar with file-sharing, so we want to experiment with ways to use that to our advantage, instead of making the mistake of trying to fight or ignore it, as so many artists and labels do.” NIN’s Rob Sheridan added. Many sites, too are willing to work with artists with programs such as Mininova’s content distribution platform and What.cd’s ‘Vanity House’.

It is not sure how NIN got invited to both OiNK replacements what.cd and waffles.fm, however, since Trent Reznor himself admitted to be a frequent user of OiNK, he probably signed up at the trackers from the start, and invited the official NIN user.

Of course, not everyone gets this, some news sites have been reporting that the accounts are bogus, or that the torrents, including the official ones, are stealing. An admin of one of the private tracker did have a sobering comment though “It doesn’t help that the full version is available as well on music torrent sites in general.”

screenshot of the official NIN profile at what.cd

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

What.cd (currently offline at time of publication) was founded the day of the OiNK takedown. “I felt sick to my stomach all morning” was how ‘What’, co-founder of what.cd described the day OiNK got raided. “We plan to grow into a large tracker – probably not as large as oink, and not as open, but eventually, I would like to support at least a hundred thousand users,” he adds

Waffles.fm on the other hand, doesn’t open for another few hours (12:01AM PST on October 31st). “In principle we’re filling a gap in the market – a lot of people just don’t get on with open / lenient trackers. In restoring that we’re also bringing back the community OiNK had, which is a big part of it,” is how waffles co-founder ‘Barney’ put his site to TorrentFreak. He is also not being as openly ambitious at first as “What” either “We’re looking at inviting perhaps 200 or less people on the opening day. We’ll gradually invite more people as things progress.”

Neither of the admins showed much enthusiasm for BOiNK, the project that is in development by the guys behind The Pirate Bay. Their main concerns were in the overall quality, and longevity of torrents on a public tracker. Somewhat ironically, however, both sites are aiming on moving to take up permanent hosting at the PRQ datacenter, as soon as upgrades there are complete. “The electricians started their work of installing another 3x200A feed yesterday” a PRQ source told TorrentFreak today.

And the reaction of the old OiNK staffers? Paine, currently the public voice of the old OiNK team, had no real comment on them, beyond hoping they both do well, and reiterating that neither is an ‘official’ replacement for OiNK.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.