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="194611"]the only way ‘the war’ of music downloading between record companies and downloaders can be lost is if the internet as an information highway becomes non-neutral … people will always download music, myself included. anyone who agrees with me should fight for net neutrality, plain and simple.
[/quote]
There is a difference between net neutrality and net legality. The truth is that almost everything OINK was doing was a clear violation of the LAW, which is the social contract citizens make with the government in exchange for goods and services. It seems you are suggesting “net neutrality” to mean that illegal actions should be defined as legal when they occur online.
Imagine a world where someone could steal your credit card online, go shopping with it at online stores, and not be prosecuted for it simply because all his actions took place online. Is that the definition of “net neutrality”??? Real net neutrality is when the net, like the rest of our society, is governed by laws and not by chaos as it is now.
In the end, illegal downloaders and uploaders have already lost the “the war” of music because their actions are inherently illegal and subject to prosecution if discovered. By subverting the law you are not winning “the war.”
[quote]
think about what it would be like if only certain drivers could use a road or highway.
[/quote]
In the USA, this already happens in the form of government-regulated drivers licenses, license plates, registration, and the requirement to have auto insurance. Not to mention toll-restricted roads which provide direct income to U.S. state governments. It is nothing new for laws to regulate roads or a variety of other taxpayer services.
man, this sucks. the music industry is fucking money hungry bitches. after this, i am never ever go buy an album again. it’s ridicolous, about 90% of the money goes to the industry and is invested in promotion of new sucky mainstream music. the only way how i’d buy music is if i could buy it directly from the artist, and pay like 3$ for (because that’s how much of the money i pay they actually get, right now)
long live piracy!
I have downloaded terrabytes of movies, music, software, porn. I admit I am a pirate. And yes, the laws regarding music are aged, outdated. People can and will copy and share. Live with it, the record companies Just can’t accept the reality because they know they are dinosurs and are slated for extinction if they don’t kill us all or lock us behind iron bars. We will win because there are more of us, plus technology is plentiful and cheap, we’ll just go on pirating. Anything they throw at us encrytion wise as a collective whole can be cracked and shared, and laughed at. Arrr Arrr Arr! (For good measure) The Laws will change. A time will come when even after attempting to bribe and payoff law enforement people it will seem laughable and extreme to go after anyone for sharing files. Their mafia tactics will then be noticed.
The record industry is made up of lawyers, mafia goons, and lots of money changing hands.
another thing, does anyone know if there’s a place to donate for law fees and stuff to oink? i’d gladly spend a couple of dollars to help this guy out
“DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT give ANY money to ANY of these fake funds you are seeing. They are scams. OiNK will not see a penny of this money, and neither will you.”
/a mod/
well of course i would only donate if it was officially posted on a big site like this or tpb… everyone should
[quote comment="194618"]Why did the investigation go on for two years? Isn’t that something like entrapment?
And about the upload amounts, I remember there were several users in the top ten with something like 20 terabytes uploaded and 5mb downloaded, I’d guess these would be the guys they’re going after. I don’t understand why users like that existed, seems a bit strange.[/quote]
Also wouldn’t the fact they waited until he was logged onto the site be intrapment too. The fact that they also had reporters and the “victims” along should be enough to get this case thrown out if criminal charges are brought.
fuck the police
I wish I knew how I could help.
>And about the upload amounts, I >remember there were several users in >the top ten with something like 20 >terabytes uploaded and 5mb >downloaded, I’d guess these would be >the guys they’re going after. I don’t >understand why users like that >existed, seems a bit strange.
I met a guy once through the internet who structured a good portion of his life around scanning in books and making free pdf versions of them available to people he met. I lost track of him regrettably, I would have liked to talk to him about OiNK now and see his thoughts…but the reason why he did all that, despite any legal issue, time issue, or whatnot, was that he felt it was his “dharma” to do so. I guess some people view things on a different level and see the dissemination of knowledge, arts and the like as a mission in life and worth the risks. Not to be corny, but sorta like robin hood stories…
this sucks so hard. Oink was thee best website period. All you custys who couldn’t get in were never meant to. As for the people posting oink’s req. as being 1:1 get your head out of your ass and fuck off, no one wants to hear your uninformed, oblivious mouth flapping. Go back to your custy public trackers wankers!
[quote comment="194675"]
Also wouldn’t the fact they waited until he was logged onto the site be intrapment too. The fact that they also had reporters and the “victims” along should be enough to get this case thrown out if criminal charges are brought.[/quote]
Wrong — police do this all the time by planting fake cars equipped with GPS and remote-locking doors where thieves steal them and then are caught a few minutes later. Entrapment would be if the police “forced” the thief to steal the car, in the same way that it would be entrapment if the police “forced” or “entrapped” him to sign onto the site, which they did not. He signed online at his own will.
Even so, in UK, entrapment cases are not required to be thrown out.
I agree with Mr Jones for the most part, in that the legal precedents and procedures on both sides need to be more closely examined and worked upon. Howsomever, it’s pretty shoddy work on both sides.
Every time something like this happens 3/4 (low-low estimate) of the filesharing community cries “ILLEGAL PIGS HAR HAR” when they have no idea what the hell they’re on about, really. The feds are no better, but they’re in power so who’s going to tell them otherwise?
The community needs some young Grisham-esque turk from within to step it up and defend people like Oink’s admin from a position of respectability, rather than just a lot of yelling and pouting as it’s been.
N
[quote comment="194618"]And about the upload amounts, I remember there were several users in the top ten with something like 20 terabytes uploaded and 5mb downloaded, I’d guess these would be the guys they’re going after. I don’t understand why users like that existed, seems a bit strange.[/quote]
I was happy to take the time to rip and share all of my OOP, rare albums with whomever would enjoy them. I don’t think it’s the amount that people uploaded so much as it is WHAT they uploaded. The pre-release leakers are no doubt in the crosshairs.
Read here:
http://tehpaine.blogspot.com/
what is “the scene”?
The Scene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scene
[quote comment="194629"]
There is a difference between net neutrality and net legality. The truth is that almost everything OINK was doing was a clear violation of the LAW, which is the social contract citizens make with the government in exchange for goods and services.
[/quote]
The “law” applied to a website depends on the ground that the servers are on. And even in US there is no “clear violation of law” for torrent sites! there are plenty of US torrent sites, the only lawbreakers are the ones using the sites, not one hosting a site that does not contain copyrighted material. I do not know what lobby organisation you are from, but you clearly are brainwashed.
[quote comment="194629"]
It seems you are suggesting “net neutrality” to mean that illegal actions should be defined as legal when they occur online.
[quote]
There are no illigal actions from what you speak of, the only illigal actions is taken by the sites users if they are on soil that forbids sutch actions. In the internet world, laws applied to users and websites depends on where they are located.
There are plenty of US torrent sites, it is not illigal to host a torrent site, and the servers do not contain copyrighted materials. Its the users of a site witch might be lawbreakers.
That does not give rights for private foreign influence to corrupt police and make them steal servers from them.
You have talked a great deal of stealing Mr. Lobby Dickhead, well your “heroes” just made the police steal servers in witch no copyrighted material is hosted on. Thats REAL stealing compared to the stealing you declare the world of doing without knowing anything about their laws.
You are one of those idiots that think US laws apply to the whole world. You should stop posting on these sites, your idea of freedom is corrupted and you want to spread lies.
I would ban you in a second based on your posts on this and other sites.
Dont think noone knows who you are..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scene
Now Alan (Oink) is being silent, which is expected in any sort of case like this.
I’ve been thinking about why the IFPI was allowed to hijack OiNK’s front-page, why he got out so quickly and why he hasn’t been charged with anything yet…..
Is there a possibility he just signed a piece of paper to allow them to do it?
LokiTorrent did it - now I know OiNK’s a good guy but if the police had my balls in a vice I’d soon sign anything they put in front of me.
I don’t know doesn’t seem like a smart move to sign something that is practically a confession.
I wouldn’t do that - showing good will and all… but thats a bit much but then again I’m not a lawyer.
Imo he is still innocent he didn’t host anything and linking is not a crime for now so why let them harass my users?
I used to work in the music biz and it’s way moar ‘criminal’ than anything P2P is doing.
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