Idolator

The UK's Cleveland Police have confirmed to TorrentFreak that last month they arrested six users of shuttered BitTorrent site OiNK, which broke the Internet's heart when it was shut down by British authorities last October. All six of the arrested ex-OiNKers are being accused of releasing pre-release music to the site; whether they are being targeted for having leaked major-label releases only is unclear. All six—five men and one women, all between the ages of 19 and 33—were charged with "conspiracy to defraud the music industry" and are currently out on bail. TorrentFreak has more on the charges (obligatory warning to take any hyperbole within the description with a grain of salt goes here): More »

11:15 AM on Mon Jun 2 2008
By Maura Johnston
809 views, 1 comment

Latest by femstix: ...and the sources on the 'scene', you know, the janitor or the secretary working at the studio who actually steal and leak the material, are going to keep doing what they're doing. And some other dumb knobs will make it more »

If you've paid half-attention to the news cycle as regards illegal file sharing over the last 12 months, then you've already gleaned the gist of "Ripped To Shreds," where writer Adrienne Day interviews the founder of former BitTorrent hub OiNK, nameless members (and ex-members) of "ripping crews," small label owners, and journalists to outline the rise in online leak culture for a print readership that will presumably still be mildly shocked by the fact that "many of the saboteurs come from within the industry itself," that record labels and journalists and bands and friends of bands and nameless studio hands are all complicit, to one degree of malice or another, in putting records online for anyone to steal before they've been officially released. But here's a thumbnail. More »

12:05 PM on Wed Jan 2 2008
By jharv
906 views, 4 comments

Latest by worldsfair: personally i think personalized promos could be SO MUCH COOLER than folks (ouselves included) pull off... imagine if you got a Wu promo with the crew on every track specifically mentioning your name and what punishments they will pound on more »

Remember all that smug talk about the "multi-headed hydra" of BitTorrent sites that spring up after OiNK went to piggy heaven? Well—shock!—those heads may have gotten a little too big a little too quickly. A tipster writes: "Apparently the user database at What.cd was hacked and all of the users got a love letter from the 'RIAA.' In the haste to get oink replacements out and well populated, there have been some severe security lapses. Almost makes me want to stop the whole torrent thing. Almost. " B-but we thought OiNK and its descendants were all about the community, and not playing stupid hacker tricks on a gullible userbase! Anyway, the "RIAA" e-mail is after the jump. It's pretty obviously fake—note the British spelling of "offense," for one!—but then again, the fact that OiNK's post-raid homepage seems to seriously be using "Never Forget 10/23" in its logo should serve as a sign that the irony-o-meters of a lot of people are out of whack. More »

2:30 PM on Mon Nov 12 2007
By mjohnston
841 views, 1 comment

Latest by sparkletone: "B-but we thought OiNK and its descendants were all about the community, and not playing stupid hacker tricks on a gullible userbase!" Whether or not a site is "all about the community" has nothing to do with the willingness of some more »

Hey, all you kids who are still wiping the tears from your eyes over Oink's demise—as predicted, another torrent site has risen from the ashes and will try to make your sense of entitlement grow all over again. It's called Boink (apparently it'll be at boink.cd), it'll be hosted by BitTerrorist haven The Pirate Bay, and it'll launch sometime next week, albeit with a list of records that's much smaller than Oink's. It'll even have the insufferable pink cuteness about it, judging by the photo above, but— More »

2:30 PM on Fri Oct 26 2007
By mjohnston
3,078 views, 7 comments

Latest by N/A: Leaving aside the "morality" question, the concern over whether a reborn OiNK would be "invite-only and super-duper secret" is - or should be - a practical one; it isn't elitism for its own sake. After all, the site wasn't more »

Okay, we give. This will be Idolator's last OiNK-related post unless some actual news drops. There will be no more "commenting on the commentary." Seriously. Hell, if I post anything else about it at all, I promise to give each and every one of you a dollar. Because we have officially hit the "Godwin's Law" portion of our program. Actually it's way more distasteful and embarrassing than Godwin's Law. More »

12:00 PM on Thu Oct 25 2007
By jharv
1,810 views, 58 comments

So yeah, OiNK is gone, never to return, cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth. But there's one question that is out there: Will shutting it down really benefit the music industry's bottom line? We called on CMJ panel chronicler/industry observer Ryan Catbird to share his thoughts on that topic, as well as the increasingly fragmented attention economy. More »

2:20 PM on Wed Oct 24 2007
By rcatbrird
2,688 views, 20 comments

So as many of you know, I used to have an OiNK account until this past April, when my former cohort decided to post the site's most shared torrents and the admins over there pitched a fit. But you know what? Getting kicked turned out to be kind of liberating! More »

11:15 AM on Wed Oct 24 2007
By mjohnston
4,656 views, 49 comments

Reactions to the shutdown of BitTerrorist haven OiNK are still pouring into Google and RSS readers everywhere. And while there are still plenty of hilarious overreactions, we're also starting to see something like informed, reasoned commentary on the bust. Plus a lot of sighing and wondering whither next:

More »

10:35 AM on Wed Oct 24 2007
By jharv
3,105 views, 12 comments

Okay, you little bastards, especially the ones leaving comments all over the site about how we somehow brought the authorities to your little digital bootlegging ring. (It's not as if anyone in a position of power in the music industry had anything to do with spreading the word about OiNK.) You stole. And it's okay! We all do it. In the interest of full disclosure, I will now inform any RIAA lawyers reading this that I have been known to use Napster, Audiogalaxy, and Soulseek at various points in my life. Come and get me! But all of you OiNK goofs need to cease your pathetic justifications and "moralist" handwringing^* at once! More »

6:22 PM on Tue Oct 23 2007
By jharv
3,778 views, 20 comments

Latest by Ned Raggett: @FunkyJ: older Australian hiphop Dare I ask? more »

Once the OiNK news broke, Jess got a request from his pal Mark Pytlik: "hey, if you havent already, you guys seriously need to talk to an internet copyright lawyer and figure out how much danger oink's userbase is actually in right now. there are a ton of people bricking themselves out there and no sites or blogs seem to have much in the way of reliable information as far as that stuff goes." Informed speculation? On the Internet? That's such an anomalous occurrence that I had to track down a couple of legal types, and asked them how much OiNK's now-former-users should be worrying about the possibility of their being prosecuted. More »

5:47 PM on Tue Oct 23 2007
By mjohnston
47,842 views, 19 comments

Latest by Trackback: There's a curious attempt to sound reassuring in OiNK arrestee Alan Ellis' interview with ZeroPaid:the logs we store aren't enough to incriminate usersThis, of course, is the same Ellis who told the Telegraph that he didn't believe OiNK did anything more »

OiNK has been down less than a day and the displaced and distraught are already coming together to begin the healing process and offer some solace to each other in this time of need. And we're not sure which is funnier: the parody site or the real thing. More »

3:15 PM on Tue Oct 23 2007
By jharv
4,937 views, 3 comments

Almost a day later, thanks to the BBC. There's something about the cops busting this schlub at the crack of dawn in his bathrobe that makes this just a little more pathetic. And boy, the media is really hammering that "you had to pay to use OiNK" fib, aren't they? More »

1:39 PM on Tue Oct 23 2007
By jharv
3,050 views, 3 comments

Reactions to the shutdown of BitTerrorist haven OiNK have come in swiftly from around the blogosphere, and they're exhibitng the restraint and candor the Internet is known for:

• "Sorry if this has already been posted, but I'm following the San Diego fires right now, and this is just another devastation right on top of it." [Oh No They Didn't]
• "Now that OiNK is gone, where shall we get our pre-release fix? Where can we so easily unearth new bands to hype?" [I Guess I'm Floating]

More »

12:01 PM on Tue Oct 23 2007
By mjohnston
4,559 views, 17 comments

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." More »

9:22 AM on Tue Oct 23 2007
By jharv
3,937 views, 27 comments

Idolator

Live-Blogging The 2008 Video Music Awards: No Britney, No Peace

Posts Tagged “oink”

OiNK Users Arrested, Charged With Conspiracy To Defraud The Music Industry

"New York" Tries To Sum Up Music Leak Culture

OiNK Successor's Users Get Mash Notes From "RIAA"

OiNK Replacement Site To Launch, Inevitably Disappoint Users Next Week

This Just In: If You Hate On BitTorrent Sites You Are Committing A Hate Crime

Will OiNK's Shutdown Cause People To Rush The Shops? (Probably Not.)

The Real Secret About OiNK: It Was Kind Of Overrated! (Don't You Think?)

OiNK Reactions Day Two: A Contradictory, Self-Selected Nation Mourns

OiNKgate, Day One: The Final Wrap-Up

The OiNK Fallout: Should Its Ex-Users Be Watching Their Backs?

OiNK Survivors Get By With A Little Help From Their Friends

Brit Cops Bust OiNK...And You Are There!

The Internet Squeals Like A Pig As OiNK Turns Into Bacon

Pirates Everywhere Pour Out A Little For OiNK