OiNK

OiNK was a file sharing website specialising in pre-release music CDs

A series of recent reports on blog Torrent Freak indicates that six former OiNK users were arrested in late May by British authorities for sharing music via the website. They are currently out on bail.

The Cleveland Police confirmed the arrests to Torrent Freak; the six persons in question include five males and one female. In each case, suspects were taken in, interrogated by police, and required to provide fingerprints and DNA samples.

The arrests apparently took place as part of Operation Ark Royal, the ongoing investigation of a "massive piracy scam" (i.e. OiNK) undertaken by the Cleveland Police's Organized Crime Unit in conjunction with the RIAA-affiliated International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). These mark the first OiNK-related arrests since that of site founder Alan Ellis, whose legal team has reportedly offered free counsel to some of recent arrestees. (Torrent Freak reports that Ellis has yet to be charged with any crime.)

The six people arrested were all suspected of sharing albums prior to their release dates. Torrent Freak reports that at least two of the arrests are for the alleged uploading of a single album.

The BPI shared the following statement with The Register: The BPI and IFPI worked with the police in order to close down the OiNK tracker site last October. The illegal online distribution of music, particularly pre-release, is hugely damaging, and as OiNK was the biggest source for pre-releases at the time we moved to shut it down.

Concerns are myriad at this point, ranging from how authorities can prove their cases using the easily manipulated user data seized during the initial OiNK raid, to why the police are involved at all in what some have suggested is merely a matter that calls for civil action, to, of course, whether the arrests will continue-- and, if so, who will be next.

Cleveland police have charged Alan Ellis, the former administrator of the defunct BitTorrent tracker site OiNK, with conspiracy to defraud the record industry.

Ellis will face magistrates at a committal hearing on 24 September, a police spokeswoman said. Five individuals who were arrested in June for uploading music torrents to OiNK will also appear to answer charges of criminal copyright infringement.

All the alleged offences could carry prison sentences.

The charges follow a lengthy investigation code-named Operation Ark Royal. Ellis was arrested in October 2007 in a raid on his Middlesbrough home. Coordinated raids by Dutch authorities seized the servers that hosted OiNK.

Police at the time alleged that running the BitTorrent tracker had been extremely lucrative, making hundreds of thousands of pounds.

OiNK was operated on an invitation-only basis, and accepted donations from members. It was prized by members for the high quality encoding of many of the files it tracked, and for its frequent pre-release uploads.

Update: Sentenced

28th January 2009. See article from torrentfreak.com

Four of the OiNK uploaders plead guilty at Teesside Crown Court last December, where they were all charged with copyright infringement offences. The four have now been sentenced.

Steven Diprose was sentenced to 180 hours community service, and has to pay £378 in Court costs. Michael Myers was ordered to pay a £500 fine. Mark Tugwell has to undertake 100 hours community service and has to pay £378 Court costs. The fourth uploader, James Garner was sentenced to 50 hours community service and also has to pay £378 Court costs.

For one other uploader and OiNK admin Allan Ellis the wait continues. Their cases have been adjourned and they will appear before court in March.

We were further told that, if the defendants had not had such good references and strong legal representation, the Judge would have seriously considered a custodial sentence. This ruling, the first of its kind in the UK, will most certainly be used as a precedent for future cases.

Update: Acquitted

17th January 2010. See article from technology.timesonline.co.uk

A man accused of running a sophisticated music piracy website used by more than 200,000 members was acquitted of conspiracy to defraud today.

Alan Ellis, 26, was accused of making hundreds of thousands of pounds from the Oink website, which he ran alone from his own bedroom.

But a jury at Teesside Crown Court unanimously cleared the software engineer of the charge. Mr Ellis, from Middlesbrough, smiled as the jury foreman returned the not guilty verdict.

During the trial, Mr Ellis had told the jury that he set up Oink in his home in an effort to brush up on his computing skills while a student at Teesside University. Related Links. When police raided his terraced house in October 2007, they found almost $300,000 in his accounts.