OiNK Investigation: Police Start Making Arrests
Written by enigmax on May 30, 2008TorrentFreak has received information which suggests that British police have made good on their claim that they would go after ex-users of OiNK. Last week, several officers arrested at least one individual for the seeding of a single album. It is believed police are in the process of arresting and questioning others.
When the OiNK tracker was shutdown in 2007, a statement appeared on the site’s homepage. This time - and unusually for the UK - it would be the police investigating a file-sharing case, not some anti-piracy group flexing their muscles in civil action. But even now, months after OiNK was shutdown, no-one - including OiNK admin Alan Ellis - has been charged with anything.
Would OiNK users really become a target for the police, despite the presumed civil status of sharing music on P2P networks? If so, why?
Right from the start, there has been a concerted effort by various elements of the music industry to portray everyday citizens using OiNK - presumably including the likes of Trent Reznor - as hardened criminals out to ruin the industry. At the time, BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor called OiNK a “closed criminal network” and unfortunately this type of comment set the general tone for many follow up news articles.
In reality, OiNK offered no music of its own but was the venue of an unofficial virtual party, where a limited number of people listened to music without fees or charges, in a modern take on pirate radio - but with a twist. If people had some music to share with others then so much the better, they could bring it along, add it to the index (and that’s all OiNK was, an index) and everyone could listen, to see if they liked it too.
Of all things, it was certainly not about money and a large proportion of the members wouldn’t even have considered that sharing music would result in police knocking on the door, any more than as a result of them using YouTube. But knock they did.
Last week Cleveland Police arrested a user of OiNK in the Cheshire area, who was questioned and later released on police bail. It is alleged that the individual - a normal user of the site who has no previous involvement with the police and no criminal convictions - uploaded a solitary album in early 2007.
Furthermore, information suggests that the police will be arresting and interviewing more users in the course of this investigation but at this stage it is unclear exactly who they are targeting and why. A one-off album uploader seems an unlikely target, particularly as legally in the UK, the fact that the album was allegedly pre-released - as opposed to released after retail - means little.
Going on previous cases, uploading (sharing) would be a civilly actionable offense - lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK are happy to send out bills to those it claims uploaded its client’s games and the police aren’t interested. But for reasons no-one seems to fully understand, the police are involved in this case and have sent a car full of officers to make an arrest at the individual’s place of work, all for sharing a few minutes of music.
Another issue up for debate is the big question mark sitting over the usefulness of site logs. Stats are manipulated all the time for one reason or another and trackers have to rely on a user’s torrent client reporting data correctly. To be anywhere close to proving infringement it is necessary to track the transfer of data from within the swarm by directly receiving data from the uploader. This is fairly trivial, does not require the site logs and importantly should’ve been done at the time the album was uploaded. Why there has been such a huge delay in taking further action is unknown.
Last year saw an unexplained shift in the way copyright actions are dealt with in the UK. Out of nowhere, both OiNK and the popular TV-Links sites were taken down by police action where one would usually expect a civil lawsuit, leaving prominent legal experts intrigued as to the legal basis.
Uploading one album is not the world’s most heinous crime, in fact, unless the UK legal system changed overnight, it’s not a crime at all since there would’ve been no commercial gain for the user. So what route is this investigation taking? What is the significance of arresting this individual and investigating others over a seemingly small civil issue, and why has it taken so long to do so?
As usual, there are more questions than answers. The arrests have started, but it is unknown how many people are involved. We contacted the Police department that was responsible for at least one arrest, however, they did not respond to our inquiries. If you have any information, please contact TorrentFreak here, as we will post an update of the arrests later this weekend.
Previously: Revision3 Sends FBI after MediaDefender
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165 Responses
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i bet many of you guys are getting scared? I’m pretty happy that i never got an invite now. What worries me is if this ever happens to what.cd in the future :/
Another scare tactic, they will probably go after <= 6 individuals just to scare the pirates. But fuck you I will still download and seed.
UK Sucks
It’s better to live in Islamic countries ! ! !
No arrests, No piracy, no anti-Piracy.
What the fuck is going on in UK. argh
Go to jail only for a fucking MP3 File LooooooL
yes, i’d much rather live in an islamic country where they’d probably chop off my penis for pirating or even downloading porn.
LOL Mr.Afg you get your hands chopped off for stealing.
Will be interesting if what and waffles will be taken down :)
No TV, no cinema, no freedom of speech, no etc.
Yeah, brilliant! You fucking dumbass towel-head sand-crab-fucking TWAT!
& of course, i will never stop downloading !
I am addicted with downloading movies, i can’t live without downloading movies.
if Bittorrent go down, i will start:
DC++
FTPs
MIRC
LooL lots of offers, it’s impossible to stop sharing community ! ! !
Despite the fact that getting caught is like getting a lightning strike the lightning is already bad enough. Will you not stand for your fellow file-sharers and demand justice for them? Do you people have no care about those unfortunate individuals who are a victim to this injustice?
I say that it is a time to pursue all means to destroy the propaganda regime of those “anti-pirates.”
For we must set up NPO’s for the purpose of advocacy and legal defense. For I had not seen a single NPO for this purpose. The EFF is not for this purpose. They do not care about file-sharing. The Free Software Foundation does not care about people uploading albums, only software. Let us all volunteer our time to help those unfortunate individuals, for their propaganda and persecution has already gone on long enough.
For this purpose, I propose that we start collecting a list of volunteers for the establishment of an organization for the rallying of the cause.
For the anti-pirates cannot be allowed to have a monopoly on saying that we are criminals, any more. We have no voice, but we must, for we must get out to the public that we believe we are good and righteous.
Don’t let this put you off.
The more people that download/upload and leech/seed, the harder it is for police and the legal system to actually do anything about it.
It is like how birds always fly in great numbers, the more of them there are, the less likely they are to be taken down by pray.
Sorry, I’m a tax paying UK citizen who in the past 12 months has been held at gun point and in a second incident car jacked, some would say this is my fault for living in Nottingham (or Shottingham as the media calls it) however what I’m annoyed about is nothing was done by the police in either case, yet in this one where no one was harmed or threatened and wasn’t violent in anyway they are prepared to spend my hard earned and paid tax money on an investigation…. anyone know where I can complain?
It’s probable that if the police go after anyone, it would be the people who were the original seeds of unreleased albums.
Highly unlikely that police would go after ordinary downloaders [which by BT design are also transparently uploading].
More info on this would be good, I can feel the wave of paranoia from here!
all you see lately on tv is murders in the northwest, sorry i mean news northwest, it’s all gun crime knife culture oh now we have the police leaving all the real pysical crime and dangerous people alone
and going after someone who shares an album on the internet?
this world is falling to peices bit by bit until there is nothing left to fall.
Holy Cow.
This sounds like make arrests first ask questions later.
Pity more people are not using anonymous p2p as this would make such situations improbable.
edited: <>
Police + Torrentfreak = Widespread paranoia
So much for visiting Airstrip One.
Fascists.
Thats the UK police for you.
There lazy and go after the soft targets. That’s way they go after the UK drivers for speeding and littering!!
Plus they now have “targets” to meet, does not matter what “crime” it is, all arrests count towards there “targets”.
There legal basis is flimsy and weak. Of course they can use the scare tactic but prosecution and convictions seem rare. The police will not go after individuals whilst seriously believing that they could stop them. It is futile. This is far bigger than simply “oink” now.
I can give them my home adress, no doubt
It’s Good Live At Finland!
(Sorry For My “Not-So-Good” English)
@9
Do you have no care for the person who was arrested? You may not have been the one, but it is a still grave injustice that ought to be corrected. I do not see why you should ever let such an injustice happen without proper correction. Yes, the you may not be a Jew, but it still was a terrible crime.
More than one person was arrested also, I know because I was one of them. :(
@15
Is it not a good thing? It still stands the fact that there needs to be a pro-file-sharing advocacy/lobbying and legal group. None exists. EFF is not one. FSF is not one. We need one.
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