We wont be getting any more registrations asking for oink invites..

motivez · 10-23-2007, 11:12 AM

Huge pirate music site shut down
British and Dutch police have shut down a "widely-used" source of illegally-downloaded music.

A flat on Teesside and several properties in Amsterdam were raided as part of an Interpol investigation into the members-only website OiNK.

The UK-run site has leaked 60 major pre-release albums this year alone, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

A 24-year-old man from Middlesbrough was arrested on Tuesday morning.

'Extremely lucrative'

The IT worker was led from his home in the town's Grange Road and is being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and infringement of copyright law.

Within a few hours of a popular pre-release track being posted on the OiNK site, hundreds of copies can be found
IFPI spokesman

At the same time his employer - a large multi-national company - and his father's home were also raided.

A Cleveland Police spokesman said: "This extremely lucrative and creative scheme consisted of a private file-sharing website being set up. Membership was by invitation only.

"The site allowed the uploading and downloading of pre-release music and media to thousands of members.

"Members paid 'donations' via debit or credit cards, ensuring their continued access to the site."

Users were only invited to join the site if they could prove that they had music to offer, according to an IFPI spokesman.

Unfinished versions

He said: "They were encouraged to distribute recordings in the torrent file format with other OiNK members, and have to keep posting such music to the site to maintain their membership.

"Once an album had been posted on the OiNK website, the users that download that music then passed the content to other websites, forums and blogs, where multiple copies were made.

"Within a few hours of a popular pre-release track being posted on the OiNK site, hundreds of copies can be found further down the illegal online supply chain."

The site's servers, based in Amsterdam, were seized in a series of raids last week.

It follows a two-year investigation by music industry bodies the IFPI and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

Pre-release piracy is particularly damaging to sales as it leads to early mixes and unfinished versions of artists' recordings circulating on the internet months ahead of the release.

Fare thee well oink

I like how there's blatant misinformation in the article, trying to make it out to be some kind of pay service..

Anyway, with as sophisticated of an anti-leech system as they had, one has to wonder about the records that were kept on the server.. and whether or not that information will be passed around to the RIAA and other organizations.

thomez · 10-23-2007, 04:37 PM

delete all of your torrents in your tracker from oink if you haven't done so already...

my buddy left me a voice mail today to let me know that this happened so I could delete my trackers... he saw that the Cleveland Police were involved (close to us) but it was actually Cleveland, UK lol

Linzyhop · 10-23-2007, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by thomez

delete all of your torrents in your tracker from oink if you haven't done so already...

my buddy left me a voice mail today to let me know that this happened so I could delete my trackers... he saw that the Cleveland Police were involved (close to us) but it was actually Cleveland, UK lol

do i need to do anything involved with the music you gave me??

WickedLou9 · 10-23-2007, 05:07 PM

They generally go after the providers not the downloaders.

If you want free music, look for something like Ruckus. If you are a college student or have an EDU e-mail address you can sign up. Then strip the DRM off of whatever you download and whammo. Free music and virtually no way of ever getting caught because the download itself is legit.

thomez · 10-23-2007, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by Linzyhop

do i need to do anything involved with the music you gave me??

no

WickedLou9 · 10-23-2007, 07:48 PM

Originally Posted by thomez

no

Lies! She has to set her computer on fire so that the NSA doesn't get it.

Roonie · 10-24-2007, 09:37 AM

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

They generally go after the providers not the downloaders.

If you want free music, look for something like Ruckus. If you are a college student or have an EDU e-mail address you can sign up. Then strip the DRM off of whatever you download and whammo. Free music and virtually no way of ever getting caught because the download itself is legit.

Tell these people that!

Sharing Songs Online Costs Woman $222,000

WickedLou9 · 10-24-2007, 10:02 AM

Originally Posted by Roonie

Tell these people that!

Sharing Songs Online Costs Woman $222,000

Sharing is the key word. If you make songs available for others to download from you, you are in danger. If all you do is download from others, you are not in danger.

motivez · 10-24-2007, 12:25 PM

I really think the main goal here was the shutdown of the site and arrest of the key players, the amount of resources it would take to track down and prosecute the users is probably more trouble than it's worth really

WickedLou9 · 10-24-2007, 01:34 PM

It's funny that the RIA thinks it can win this fight.
Back in like 1996 I was living in the dorms hooked up to the ethernet connection we had and I was on IRC setting up FTP servers so people could connect. I would make it so like you upload one song to me, any song, and download whatever you want. It was neat I got all sorts of stange music. Someone sent me this cool song called "around the world" by daft Punk back in 1996. No one had heard of them. This was before the big crack down and there were websites with MP3's available for download. Then stuff like Napster came along and everyone used that, eventually the RIAA cracked down and napster went away, then you had stuff like Limewire, grokster, Bear share, edonkey,. etc which I think are still around. If they shut down Oink, there will just be another service that springs up. It will never ever stop.

motivez · 10-24-2007, 02:09 PM

I read an interesting article not too long ago that said essentially, people who've grown up in this downloadable music age essentially feel like music shouldn't cost anything, and are fairly averse to being forced to pay for it.

WickedLou9 · 10-25-2007, 09:40 AM

Originally Posted by motivez

I read an interesting article not too long ago that said essentially, people who've grown up in this downloadable music age essentially feel like music shouldn't cost anything, and are fairly averse to being forced to pay for it.

I think that's somewhat accurate. I don't think they are totally averse to paying for it, I just think that the market has been flooded with music and we don't want to pay 18 dollars or 15 dollars for a CD with 12 songs on it, only one or two of which are any good. There is music everywhere. We have music on TV, on the radio, on our cellphones, on the internet, ipods etc. it's just everywhere. So if we can get it everywhere why would I pay that much money for just a few songs? It's silly. If CD's were 5 dollars people would buy them alot more.
The .99 per song thing is also retarded. Thats the same price that I pay for a CD and I don't get anything more for it. I don't even get any neat cover art or album lyrics... AND they put DRM on everything so I can't even do whatever I want with the song I just bought.

Make downloads cheaper. make CD's cheaper. People will buy them. You can't force people to buy products at some price that you feel you deserve like the RIA is trying to do. If people don't want to buy your 18 dollar CD, they won't buy it. plain and simple. The market has changed and the RIA has not changed with it. Thier solution has been to sue people. Stupid.

Find out what the consumer wants, and give it to them at a price they are willing to pay. This isn't rocket science.