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Welcome to the Clampdown
Stick a fork in it, OiNK is done
Somewhere, Metallica drummer/Napster foe Lars Ulrich is lying in a hot tub smirking his brains out. The war on illegal file sharing is getting serious.
On Tuesday, British and Dutch police raided a flat in Middlesbrough, England, that was rumored to be ground zero for illegal file sharing website www.OiNK.cd, and arrested the 24-year-old man alleged to be its operator.
According to Reuters, OiNK is one of the largest sites for swapping illegal copies of prereleased music — providing users with more than 60 unreleased albums this year alone. The worldwide, invite-only site was reserved for those who could provide files of new music prior to its release in exchange for similarly exclusive recordings made available by other users. Though the site provided means for users to "donate" money for their membership, most reports suggest that a user's access to OiNK was mainly determined by the number of uploads he or she was able to provide in exchange for downloads. Industry experts estimate that membership in OiNK, among the most popular sites of its kind, topped 180,000.
The phenomenon of "the leak," whereby a promotional copy or ripped demo of a yet-to-be-released album is bootlegged before its street date, is cause for serious concern in the music industry, which has seen a decline of more than a third of its sales in the last six years. But for users of websites like OiNK, the thrill of "getting there first" often supersedes any concern over whether the artist, or the company that distributes the product, is being compensated properly. And, from the amount of attention the arrest is getting from online music communities, the loss of OiNK, in particular, appears to be a significant blow to P2P pirates.
On Tuesday, British and Dutch police raided a flat in Middlesbrough, England, that was rumored to be ground zero for illegal file sharing website www.OiNK.cd, and arrested the 24-year-old man alleged to be its operator.
According to Reuters, OiNK is one of the largest sites for swapping illegal copies of prereleased music — providing users with more than 60 unreleased albums this year alone. The worldwide, invite-only site was reserved for those who could provide files of new music prior to its release in exchange for similarly exclusive recordings made available by other users. Though the site provided means for users to "donate" money for their membership, most reports suggest that a user's access to OiNK was mainly determined by the number of uploads he or she was able to provide in exchange for downloads. Industry experts estimate that membership in OiNK, among the most popular sites of its kind, topped 180,000.
The phenomenon of "the leak," whereby a promotional copy or ripped demo of a yet-to-be-released album is bootlegged before its street date, is cause for serious concern in the music industry, which has seen a decline of more than a third of its sales in the last six years. But for users of websites like OiNK, the thrill of "getting there first" often supersedes any concern over whether the artist, or the company that distributes the product, is being compensated properly. And, from the amount of attention the arrest is getting from online music communities, the loss of OiNK, in particular, appears to be a significant blow to P2P pirates.
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11:20 EDT, 25.Oct.07
11:18 EDT, 25.Oct.07
10:12 EDT, 25.Oct.07