After a two-year investigation the torrent directory site Oink has been taken down in a series of raids and arrests in both The Netherlands and England. OiNK was an invitation-only private tracker that mostly dealt with members trading new release or pre-release albums, and primarily in FLAC (lossless) format. The administrator of the site was a 24-year old from the UK employed in the IT field, and it seems that finding and arresting the man was achieved by simply looking up the whois records from the site’s domain, and from information found on the confiscated servers.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) along with INTERPOL were responsible for the investigation and subsequent raids and arrests. A spokesperson for the authorities claimed that “OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online”, and that OiNK was very profitable for the administrators: “This extremely lucrative and creative scheme consisted of a private file-sharing website being set up.” The only source of revenue for OiNK were donations from members, and this may now compound problems for administrators of the site as charges in addition to the copyright infringement charges have been filed as the site is being portrayed as a for-profit criminal enterprise.
While links to pre-release albums and other releases certainly appeared on OiNK early, the authorities have claimed that the site and its members were actually responsible for these releases, showing that they still don’t understand how the scene works. While OiNK may have been popular (180,000 members), it certainly was not a central hub of online music releases. No such central hub exists, which is why the release groups are all still alive and no matter how many sites are taken down, online file trading will continue. The members of OiNK mainly consisted of music fans yearning for high-quality releases of albums, and each one of them would certainly have access to other sources for the same releases.
There is much disinformation amongst much of the media about this case, with claims that the administrators posted the music to the site directly, that they were selling music illegally, and much more. This representation of what OiNK was/is couldn’t be further from the truth and will only further alienate online file traders from the anti-piracy movement.
In related news, a few days ago the online video site Tv-Links.co.uk (archive) was also taken down and the administrator was arrested. Tv-links began as a site that linked to TV show episodes that were hosted on other hosted video sites (commonly Google Video, Dailymotion, YouTube, Stage6 and others). The site quickly became popular and later added an index of movies and other content. The files were hosted on flash-based video sites, so the quality was far inferior to DVDs and even TV broadcasts.
As with the OiNK case, the administrator was arrested in the UK, and the site itself was hosted on a UK domain name (OiNK was previously hosted on a UK domain name, but they switched over to their .cd address some months ago after having the .me.uk domain suspended). As with the OiNK case, the authorities responsible for the Tv-links takedown and arrest are also claiming that the administrator had a for-profit motive and was profiting heavily from the copyrighted works of others. One of the lead investigators in the Tv-links case had this to say:
“Sites such as TV Links contribute to and profit from copyright infringement by identifying, posting, organising, and indexing links to infringing content found on the internet that users can then view on demand by visiting these illegal sites”
While Tv-links was organizing and indexing links, it certainly was not posting content. With both OiNK and Tv-links, the directories of links were maintained and moderated by community members. Sites such as Pirate Bay have successfully argued in jurisdictions such as Sweden that by hosting torrent seed files that they themselves are not responsible for copyright infringement. In the case of TV-links, this is even more true, as the function it performs is that of a meta directory or search engine.
A recent review of IP law in the UK has clarified that the “facilitation” of copyright infringement is a crime, meaning a link to a copyrighted video on Google or Stage6 can be infringing, while the actual host of the video may not be responsible. Since the early days of FTP sites, bulletin boards and IRC, file traders have had to adjust their methods and develop technologies that decentralize responsibility - and the law in many jurisdictions has been quickly catching up. While linking may now be a crime in the UK, the law is obviously applied selectively so that various trade groups are able to target and take-down sites that they do not find kosher.
Another commonality in recent take-downs is that the authorities attempt to portray the administrators of these sites as having profited heavily from their actions. All of the admins that were recently arrested held full-time employment, and most struggled to keep their communities alive because of hosting costs and had to solicit donations. One lesson for other communities would be that even taking donations for the upkeep and maintenance of sites will be construed by authorities as selling copyrighted content for profit, which leads to additional and more serious charges.
In other related news, the world’s biggest private torrent tracker, Demonoid is back up and running after a period of downtime. We reported previously that the downtime may have been related to a takedown by authorities, and while the administrators of the site did receive a take-down notice from CRIA in Canada, they were back up and running within days with a new host.
Along with The Pirate Bay, Demonoid has managed to skirt efforts to kill its community while two other popular sites where the administrators were both based in the UK have been shutdown. In the online copyright fight, there is no uniform global law, and some countries are much safer for file traders than others. With the takedown of both OiNK and Tv-links, the authorities in the UK have expressed their intention to aggressively pursue those sites that are deemed illegal or unfavorable.
Because there are other countries where laws are not being bent and constantly shaped to appease some who want to broaden the scope of copyright infringement, the effects of these sites being taken down will be very minor. Expect to see mirrors of both OiNK and Tv-links appear very quickly hosted on non-UK domains, in non-UK or Dutch data centers, and run by non-British citizens.
Nik is a sporadic and infrequent Techcrunch contributor. He is the CEO of Omnidrive and blogs at New Web Order
Since when operating a P2P site is illegal ? The servers hosted trackers, not illegal files isn’t it ? That’s sad.
@O Lalonde,
The same day Napster got nailed for being Napster.
“There is much disinformation amongst much of the media about this case, with claims that the administrators posted the music to the site directly, that they were selling music illegally, and much more. This representation of what OiNK was/is couldn’t be further from the truth and will only further alienate online file traders from the anti-piracy movement.”
Nik, how could you possibly know what administrators did and didn’t do?
Even if it was a tracker, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible that they uploaded music to the server. They have the servers after all, they probably rummaged them for the data.
I understand that you are on the side of the pirates, but if you want people to take your blog posts seriously, you should at least try to give the impression that you are being impartial.
Just a suggestion.
Interestingly enough, just a few days ago, a court in Spain ruled in favor of sharemula.com, a web site that was shut down about a year ago for “providing links to copyright content, etc”.
After the ruling (mind the lawsuit was brough by a conglomerate of US corporations such as Sony, Disney, Microsoft, Warner, Columbia/Tristar, MGM, Universal, Fox, Paramount and others), the site is now live and LEGAL under Spanish law.
Will something like that ever happen here in the US?
I hate to say it, but Oink’s users were mostly elitist jerks. =P
It was a very strange community, to say the least.
I think what I was most annoyed about with the “aftermath” of the OiNK takedown was the complete disregard for accurate reporting by the media, who made it seem like Mr OiNK was living the high-life, benefiting from the money he had deprived the lowly music execs of.
The reporters had no clue what they were talking about but much worse in my eyes, the police didn’t either.
How will the OiNK users be dealt with in this case? Are there likely records of all the users’ downloads? I wonder if the officials will pursue prosecution of more than just the people who were overseeing OiNK.
I was under the impression that the site was for independent and rare music file sharing initially but a few bad eggs ruined it. What will happen to those who donated? Does anyone think they will be pursued? We have seen nothing but slaps on the wrist before but now many of the users information is out there, what is next?
Rumor mill has been flying since yesterday about this. Here is a good list of truths/rumors.
http://enjoys.it/2007/10/23/so.....-takedown/
“OiNK was an invitation-only private tracker that mostly dealt with members trading new release or pre-release albums, and primarily in FLAC (lossless) format.”
This statement couldn’t be more wrong. Sure they had new releases, but they had a lot more than that. FLAC was just one of many types.
I think what I was most annoyed about with the “aftermath” of the OiNK takedown was the complete disregard for accurate reporting by the media, who made it seem like Mr OiNK was living the high-life, benefiting from the money he had deprived the lowly music execs of.
The reporters had no clue what they were talking about but much worse in my eyes, the police didn’t either.
How will the Rollo users be dealt with in this case? Are there likely records of all the users’ downloads? I wonder if the officials will pursue prosecution of more than just the people who were overseeing Rollo.
Demonoid is still down in Canada. CRIA pricks! yes I said it.
“OiNK was an invitation-only private tracker that mostly dealt with members trading new release or pre-release albums, and primarily in FLAC (lossless) format.”
#9 is right — this is completely false. The number of FLAC torrents was probably 5-10% (at most) of all music uploads, and far less than that if you base it on total snatches.
The amount of misinformation flying around from otherwise reputable sources on this story is pretty remarkable. If you don’t know the facts, ask someone who does.
For all Tv-links users that still want to watch the best video content online -Check out http://www.tv3o.com. It’s the largest index site of quality video content from all tv big networks like nbc, cbs, abc etc.
What kind of scumbag steals from musicians? And hand your standard BS about how you’re handing it to the man, or that you liked listening to rare stuff. If you downloaded music you could have bought, YOU’RE A THIEF.
The difference with OiNK users and other websites that have been taken down is that the donations might be trackable through Paypal. Like most sites, it is international, could there be legal ramifications or would it most likely be the RIAA tracking people down if anything. Who is to say? Since the guy was let go on bail I am under the impression that this, like other sites, will blow over.
how come omnidrive doesnt have crunchbase link? and isnt techcrunch investor in omnidrive?
The wonders of being a US colony
Oh, the irony … what goes around comes around I guess.
In 50 years there will likely be no file sharing in the American sphere of influence, which millitarily speaking is everywhere, but I imagine they will succeed in getting file sharing stamped out in Australia, Canada, New Zealand as well … French and Germany are debatable.
To Russia it is … In Russia you do not link to illegal content, illegal content links to you!
15 … If you could have bought it then yes, but Oink actually managed to get albums online before their release when you couldn’t buy it … I guess they’re not theifs then!
@15…
Hail….to Russia it is!
now that tv-links.co.uk has been shutdown by uk police
THIS IS THE NEW SITE FOR MOVIES AND TV SHOWS!!
http://www.tvlinko.com
ITS THE BEST!! CHECK IT OUT NOW!
Please check out this site I have made:
http://www.save-tv-links.co.uk
The idea behind the site is to create a publicly accessible resource of accurate information on the tv-links case and create a discussion forum around it. It also exists to offer what ever support is possible to give to the innocent.
Anyone who can contribute or has any ideas that would make this site more functional please get in touch; the aim is too get as much information in one place as possible.
Elton1
I still say that TVLinks has been THE influence for me watching television again.
So many times I hear about great shows, but have no way of catching up so i never watch. Or I miss a couple episodes, feel like I can’t catch up, and give up on watching them.
But I could either catch up with new shows, or fill in gaps to already watched shows with TVLinks. Since the quality was so crappy, I didn’t actually WANT to watch TVLinks, I’d rather watch it on television. So I ended up trying to watch it on the television set instead, watching commercials, giving the channels higher ratings.
Now it’s gone. I wish media companies thought about this sort of thing a bit more.
I don’t know if this is true, but I read on TorrentFreak, the user database was stored on a RAM drive. If the RAM drive has a backup battery, some models (e.g. Gigabyte) only last up to 90 minutes once the system is pulled from the wall jack.
Sorry for spreading rumors. The above is not true.
If your looking for some alternatives to Oink, try this list;
http://blog.buttermouth.com/20.....music.html
i was an oink user for the past few months. i originally found myself there through finding out that an album i had worked on was “leaked” close to 4 months ahead of it’s intended commercial release. i found myself an invitation and started to use it, trying to understand how it works from the user perspective.
i must say, it was a very good system, all it lacked was monetisation. it was easy to find good music, downloads were often good quality (not just FLAC, mp3’s in various rates from the same album for example), lots of lost gems.
i do find the “leaking” of material before it’s intended commercial reelase date quite rude, this is probably mostly done by journalists and people who receieve advance copies. under what intention, i’ve no idea, maybe they want to appear cool and elitist, which it isn’t, at all, since in most cases, people who leak the work were never an integral, crucial part of the making it. in the case of the album i was involved in, i hadn’t even heard the finished version!
oink did have a sense of fairness though, they had no files that led to the new radiohead album and instead, when you searched for it, it went to the band’s website. yes, i bought it as well.
as i said earlier, it was a good website that promoted finding new music and exploration, within a fairly safe environment; real music fans.
if a rights governing body, made from the ground up, that is not full of the political bs that surrounds existing rights agencies for physical and broadcast were to exist and handle rights management and collection of monies from websites such as oink.cd, a subscription model would be perfect. for such, i would be willing to pay.
as for the curent state of music, a lot of the problem lies in the fact that the current value structure is no longer valid and probably has not been for the past 5 years, but a lot of people still want to cling on to this crippled model. believe me, i was/am one of them. i have come to realise in the past few months that those days are gone for many and on it’s last legs for the successful and one has to create a new/recycled viable method of music commerce that is kinder to the curious fan, serious fan, the people that make the music and those that help to sell it.
Men, wasn’t tv-links enough for them..?? stop the opression of our world wide sharing community…!!!! are we all outlaws just for linking…?? No way…!!!!! what about google and youtube..??? but don’t worry, they can’t stop us… i found the best replacement for tv-links: http://www.sidereel.com they have almost every tv series, tons of movies and music vids… there’s also Veoh or Dailymotion… stage 6 … plenty of alternatives..!! he he he
THIS IS NO CRIME!!!!!
FUCKING FAGGSS
tv-links is,not doing wrong ,its not saleing shit.
this internet agents are so gay,i bet they dont get pussy.
So collecting links and posting it online is illegal now…
Oh wait… being an individual is dangerous, be sure you are as big as Google so they will ignore you.
IT’s funny how they bust oink and think they’ve taken down the hub of all that’s wrong file sharing. Oink is the least of their concerns. Its a relatively small community of ppl who were quite passionate about music from what i can tell and would actually purchase the music their shared. I know i bought way more albums than ever before BECAUSE of oink. With them gone, i highly doubt i’ll ever find another source to discover music so efficiently so it’s important to see both sides of this. As i read somewhere before, it’s kind of like someone walking into an art gallery and only being able to see the corner of every painting for sale. Most ppl on oink just wanted to see the whole painting. You have public trackers trading so much more music and who knows what else to random ppl all over the free world. I would assume those are the ones causing the most damage if they are at all, not a little community like oink. Pointing all the blame for pre-released music on oink is simply hilarious. It’s unfortunte they aren’t actually looking into the WHOLE situation before claiming to go head-hunting. I know many ppl might actually be done with torrents after all this…i know i am. I just wanted to be able to find and hear music because i had to fork out my hard earned money only to find out there was one song i liked on the whole album. I have a bad feeling if they start going after individual users, s@#t will really hit the fan and ppl will d/l more than ever just to make a point. You’d have to arrest every second man , woman and child in the free world if this is the case. I’m guessing taking down these sites one at a time will get the point across or simply making it illegal to host this type of community….its a tricky situation but all i know is that the music industry will actually lose money from me because of all this. Now isn’t that ironic??
‘I think what I was most annoyed about with the “aftermath” of the OiNK takedown was the complete disregard for accurate reporting by the media, who made it seem like Mr OiNK was living the high-life, benefiting from the money he had deprived the lowly music execs of.
The reporters had no clue what they were talking about but much worse in my eyes, the police didn’t either.’
Ahahaha
that.
http://www.demonoid.com just went down again due to pressure from CRIA. “The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding.”…
it’s not right….