Why Are The IFPI and BPI Allowed To Hijack OiNK?
Written by Ben Jones on October 24, 2007As you have read here already, a joint team of Dutch and British law enforcement were involved in ‘Operation Ark Royal’, to take down the music torrent site Oink. This action however, has brought lots of questions, with very few answers. Questions such as “Why Are The IFPI and BPI Allowed To Hijack OiNK?”
The British and Dutch Pirate Parties have issued a joint statement (English/Dutch) condemning the actions as retaliatory, and questioning the ethics of choreographing it, and letting representatives of the victims participate in the investigation. How many times do they let the father of a murder victim work on the investigation of the Murder?
They also condemn the police forces for allowing the presumption of innocence to be discarded, in that the domain of the website, has been effectively hijacked, and replaced by a page insinuating guilt on the part of the site owner. The ‘Presumption of Innocence’, better known as “innocent until proven guilty” is a cornerstone of law both in the Netherlands and UK. Surely, if anyone should have put a temporary website under the Oink domain, then it should have been the Cleveland police, or the Dutch police, not the record label owners union.
This violation of what should be standard practices brings into question the ethics and procedures of the forces involved. Cleveland police have yet to respond to inquiries, however.
Of further interest is the apparent investigation on the Dutch side by the Investigation Service of the Tax and Customs Administration (or FIOD-ECD for short). This would appear to be in relation to the claimed monies that were paid by users for access to the site, which are known to us here at TorrentFreak as “voluntary donations”, but then we do our homework. The question does come to be how these criminal investigation groups manage to execute these raids, without first having done any investigation; undoubtedly heads will roll.
Timing is another interesting aspect to this case. Reportedly, the IFPI are upset that the Pirate Bay has acquired ifpi.com. However, it’s a domain they’ve not had control of (at least according to archive.org) since early this year at the latest, and so it’s hard to see how they will be able to have anything done about it, legally. Could this raid then be a retaliatory action on their part, targeting another site rather than the Pirate Bay, who are/were probably expecting some sort of backlash like this?
Whilst claims in the various press releases (BPI, IFPI, Cleveland police) all state that the site was notorious for pre-release music, it’s also relevant to consider the source of that music. According to a 2003 study by AT+T labs into the movie industry, the majority of early releases came from insiders, and its unlikely that the music industry is any different. Indeed, according to ‘apathy’, a moderator at music site Economy of Sound, several pre-releases have come from the record companies direct, where they have had the view that “you just cannot buy that kind of publicity.” Claims that pre-releases hurt sales are also not found to be based in fact, the Meshuggah album “Nothing” was leaked onto the internet, and became their best-seller.
However, perhaps the biggest thing to remember is that private sites store information. Thats how they work, and there is always some saved, in order to run ratios etc. In the end, we’re right back to the question, “Are Private Torrent Sites Safe” and it would appear that they are becoming less so as time goes on, irrespective of the law.
Previously: OiNK Admin Released From Custody
Next: OiNK Down, Norwegian BitTorrent Trackers Next
149 Responses
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[quote comment="194020"]what about canada is it safe there ppl I’m thinking of moving… what if I donated? are they gonna get me?[/quote]
you’ll be fine, most likely they will only go after oink and not it’s users. as stated before, oink had 180,000 users scattered across the globe.
What about the email addresses they have…?
again, your fine. they wont go after you.
It really shows how big business can influence the judicial system. Cleveland Police have been corrupted.
I hope Oink admin has a smart lawyer.
Perhaps what you are seeing here is the transition to E.U. law which will eventually supercede all member state laws. It doesn’t look pretty and unfortunately most people aren’t aware of what they are about to lose.
I’m no expert but I guess because they made that many mistakes you don’t even have to be that smart as a lawyer to find some loopholes.
Why is ifpi.org not loading? too many hits?
[quote comment="194079"]Why is ifpi.org not loading? too many hits?[/quote]
I believe that might be a DoS attack
LOL
[quote comment="194010"]does anyone have an estimate of what the biggest users on oink were sharing? i’m just curious whether or not to start panicking…
i had upped about 230 gigs, and downloaded about 75 gigs.
is it time to wipe my harddrive? would that even help?[/quote]
I know I saw a few that had upped over 2 terrabytes and downloaded over 1 terrabyte
An interview from the OiNK admin would give us his point of view from this whole incident.
Make it happen , mmkay?
[quote comment="194010"]does anyone have an estimate of what the biggest users on oink were sharing? i’m just curious whether or not to start panicking…
i had upped about 230 gigs, and downloaded about 75 gigs.
is it time to wipe my harddrive? would that even help?[/quote]
230gigs is no where near what some had uploaded.
http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20071023.html
anyone else notice that oink.cd no longer has that message posted? You just cant connect to anything.
cant connect through the ip 85.17.40.71 either
If you have not cleared a terabyte in upload then I would not worry at all. Even if you did you should not be panicking. These are just scare tactics that have been employed before
[quote comment="194092"][quote comment="194010"]does anyone have an estimate of what the biggest users on oink were sharing? i’m just curious whether or not to start panicking…
i had upped about 230 gigs, and downloaded about 75 gigs.
is it time to wipe my harddrive? would that even help?[/quote]
I know I saw a few that had upped over 2 terrabytes and downloaded over 1 terrabyte[/quote]
Your traffic is irrelevant. The top uploader had uploaded over 10 terabytes, but that’s irrelevant, because he only actually supplied 6 torrents.
If anything, those targeted will be the suppliers - The scenesters.
“OiNK operated an exclusive membership scheme by which users were only invited to join the site if they could prove that they had music to offer.”
lol
[quote comment="194106"]“OiNK operated an exclusive membership scheme by which users were only invited to join the site if they could prove that they had music to offer.”
lol[/quote]
Proven guilty by reason of the media. Guilty until proven innocent.
Total BS. This needs to be a won by us, otherwise this going to set a dangerous precedent for all private trackers. Everyone ask, especially UK and Dutch citizens “Why Are The IFPI and BPI Allowed To Hijack OiNK?”.
yall ever think they could shut down “the scene” , hopefully not, but all the albums/programs i dl are from the scene but i dl them off regular sites, now i need to learn how to use usenet
the distribution of pre-released material will never cease because its not the users…its the people from within the distribution companies. The record labels need to have an internal investigation and find their own leaks. Hell even the FBI and CIA have leaks.
As Guru would say “we are like roaches…never dying…always living”
I read somewhere, can’t find it now, that the only reason that video was shot is because the reporter was “coincidently” on the scene, and the cops let him tag along.
Ah, yeah right. Take a look at the video of the bust, and think about how valuable that is to them. I am not an OiNK member, but if I would be, I might have an (irrational) fear that I’m next. THat video is priceless for them.
The good news: they aren’t going to come after 180,000 people. They might make an example of some.
These people are capitalist whores, but they aren’t stupid. They know that what they’re doing with OiNK, with Links TV, Demonoid, and whatever is next, is a subtle declaration of war on the Net. If they declare too hard, they will lose credibility themselves. I’ve heard plenty of people say “I feel bad for artists.” I have never heard anyone say “Oh those poor record companies, losing money, no, this is wrong, wrong, wrong!”
The war is on, and they are going down. Do not be intimidated. Look at how week their tactics are. Busting OiNK, or Jammie Thomas, or Links, these are just little acts of Net terrorism. They know they can’t stop P2P, so they’ve resorted to intimidation.
Don’t give in to intimidation. What we should be doing right now is downloading more than ever, so what they have to report is “no effect” or an INCREASE after the arrest of the OiNK guy.
Forward, ever forward! Once the media goes down at the hands of the Net, think what is next…
Please forgive my grammar and spelling mistakes…
[quote comment="194118"]yall ever think they could shut down “the scene” , hopefully not, but all the albums/programs i dl are from the scene but i dl them off regular sites, now i need to learn how to use usenet[/quote]
The Scene will hopefully never go down , as the group that fall, just get replaced.
Usenet is not going to be safe forever.
http://www.slyck.com/story1606_GigaNews_Usenet_Server_Dump_Anonymous_Reference
Music
audionews.ru (Music production)
blackflowermusic.com
btbeat.com
bt.etree.org
btmusic.org
chronictracker.com
deepbassnine.com
dimeadozen.org
djiq.org
filemp3.org
funkytorrents.com
indietorrents.com
kerrazy-torrents.net
kraytracker.com
libble.com/
metal-torrents.com
onemoresolo.net
pj.sidewalkcrusaders.com (Pearl Jam)
punkhc.dyndns.org
punktorrents.com
purelivegigs.com
smithstorrents.co.uk (The Smiths/Morrissey)
stmusic.org
thecellar.afraid.org
themixingbowl.org
thetradersden.org
torrentazos.com
tracker.twee.se
trancetraffic.com
zombtracker.the-zomb.com
exigomusic.org
vipmusic.org
modetrance.com
tranceroute.com
softmp3.org/
punkoiska.com
metalbits.org
tracker.gunsnroses.us (Guns ‘n’ Roses)
mullemeck.serveftp.org/jps_beta/ (Japanese/Asian)
nipponsei.minglong.org (Anime OSTs)
tracker.shoegaze.lt/ (Shoegaze, Dreampop)
puretrance.org (Trance)
tracker.jpopsuki.com (J-pop)
zonebits.net (Primarily Danish music)
komodoisland.net/
tracker.shoegaze.lt (Shoegaze, indie, post-rock)
proaudiotorrents.org (pretty self-explanatory)
u2torrents.com (U2)
If this is war we’ve already won.
Revolutions have always been hard. The people with the money make the rules thats how it has always been.
This has never stopped any revolution as long as we fight for it we will win.
Some will fall some will life to see the day we win.
They can’t just roll over us but we can hit them where it hurts, take their money take their power.
Don’t pay for shit you can get for free. Sure, the big companies will tell you that you’ll only hurt yourself, the quality of your entertainment and whatnot - and they are right… but in the end it’s the big picture that counts things break in a war and it shouldn’t be just our stuff.
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