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Oh snap! Looks like all those “serious music aficionados” will have to argue about bitrates somewhere else now, because the combined might of British and Dutch law enforcement has shut down OiNK, the invite-only file-trading hub that had become the P2P-era equivalent of a Little Rascals treehouse fort with a sign that read “No 128KBps Allowed.”
The raids, in Amsterdam and Middlesbrough, followed a two-year investigation into a members-only Web site, www.OiNK.cd, which allowed users to upload and download albums before their release.
An estimated 180,000 members of the site paid “donations” via debit or credit cards, ensuring that they could continue to access the site and its catalogue of music and other media.
The site provided access to more than 60 albums before their release this year, according to industry experts.
Wow, 180,000 members on lists probably now in the hands of the authorities during the international music industry’s most litigious season in recent memory. Whoops! (Actually many of the news stories on OiNK’s shutdown are getting the facts wrong–users didn’t have to pay dues to remain an OiNK user; they just had to upload a shit-ton of music, so as to keep their upload-to-download ratio high enough.) Here’s hoping that whatever user logs the cops have don’t include any of the entitled boys and girls on this Digg thread:
This has to be a fucking joke.
I need my OiNK.
There, there…we all survived Audiogalaxy leaving us, and we’ll all survive this. Promise.
Raids Target Music Piracy Site [Reuters]
Well that’s just fucking fantastic then isn’t it…
A junkie needs their supply.
Haha oh boy.
My central Berlin-esque firewall prevented me from achieving a high enough ratio to remain a member.
Looks like it was a blessing in disguise!
oh man…. Audiogalaxy… I think I’m gonna cry now.
@brainchild: Meh, I lived through the death of Blex’s Page of Good Mp3s… I think I’ll make it past the death of Oink.
I am kinda sad. Yeah yeah, you can make fun of the bitrate audio nerditry, but I will miss OiNK a lot. I used it a lot, not for the leaked shit but to find good quality rips of out-of-print vinyl, material that no-one’s making a profit from anyway!
Where can I go for that?
I’m not concerned if they have my IP, not much the Canadian government will do, as it’s currently not against any law to download here.
While I mostly downloaded digital files for the LPs I purchase (a hefty monthly habit), I refuse to purchase any album with only two or three decent songs.
@Halfwit: i never used oink or had any need to. i was just lamenting the loss of Audiogalaxy which almost singlehandedly doubled my CD collection in the span of one semester in college.
I still haven’t gotten over Audiogalaxy. I wasn’t an Oink’er anyway. I’ve never seemed to have any trouble finding things through other means.
Audiogalaxy was the best, it’s true. But those were simpler times.
Oh man. Watch the mp3 blogosphere come crashing down in one fell swoop! Awesome!
(Oh, Audiogalaxy! I haven’t thought of that in AGES.)
Wow. And just a day or two after tv-links.co.uk was shut down. They’re not fooling around, are they?
RIP Pink Palace…
It did more good than bad.
@LingeringBursitis: Ever try one of those old-fashioned “record stores”? They often sell out-of-print vinyl.
i know i shouldn’t have burned all my bridges at indietorrents.
I think there are very few (if any) ethical excuses for stealing stuff on Oink, but it was a pretty good tool for taste testing. I’d say the vast majority of albums I wasted my ratio on were mere curiosities that, if I hadn’t have downloaded them, I’d have just never bothered to buy anyway because I wasn’t sure it’d be worth the money. Plus I don’t use an iPod, so it was nice to get mp3s rather than those terrible iPod-only files that iTunes gives you.
All that being said, it’s probably best for karma in general that it got shut down.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooo =(
And I was just getting ready to bump my ratio back to normal, too.
*pours out one for my homies*
@Fried Bologna Is Back!: yeah of course I have…. it’s just nice to find things on OiNK that you’ve spent close to a decade fruitlessly searching for [and seriously searching]
where’s the harm in that?
From a user in the “OiNK In Memoriam” thread on… another private tracker’s forums:
“Ha! My wife is a publicist and so far this morning 4 writers have asked her if she was able to get them invites to indie.torrents. I’m not going to say who they write for, but it makes me giggle my ass off.”
From oink.cd:
“This site has been closed as a result of a criminal investigation by IFPI, BPI,
Cleveland Police and the Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police (FIOD ECD) into suspected illegal music distribution.”
Cleveland police??
The Cleveland in the UK is older than the one in the US :-)
yeah, there’s a Cleveland in England too.
@brainchild: I never did either (never invited. :sad:). I was just trying to get some indie cred by going further back than audiogalaxy.
In that spirit: Does anyone remember “The Outer Limits”?
Thanks for all your help in publicizing OiNK, you fuckups.
Right, it must be Idolator’s fault that the free-music party’s over. Because OiNK wasn’t ON THE INTERNET or anything, thus Maura or Jess must have snitched.
Ridiculous. If anything, I give this cite credit for for providing actual legal analysis rather than mere delusional whining about how downloading isn’t hurting anyone.
i just noticed the bbc’s website has a link to an illegal site that actually does charge money for material it has no right to sell
[news.bbc.co.uk]
i wonder if the bpi will shut down bbc.co.uk?
the same criminal site is a big hit with the dutch
“Even the official Consumers’ Organization in The Netherlands has chosen Allofmp3 as the best place to download music. “The best service by far” was their conclusion after testing seven services available in The Netherlands.”
[www.museekster.com]