On Tuesday, users of the popular BitTorrent music sharing site OiNK.cd were greeted with the following message:
“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 into suspected illegal music distribution. A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site’s users.
British police had arrested founder Allan Ellis, and while he hasn’t been charged with anything yet, his servers were confiscated and he was reportedly questioned before being released. More information on the actual bust is available here.
The users of the website were, of course, downloading music illegally and often ahead of albums’ release dates. However, the site was more well known among music fans as a place where hard-to-find and out-of-print albums could be found and downloaded in digital formats. No albums below 192kbps were offered–many of the files offered were at much higher qualities than anything found commercially online on websites such as iTunes.
That doesn’t make the piracy legal or acceptable, however, and while OiNK only directed users to torrents (rather than offer the actual music files for download), the website drew the ire of British recording associations for its pre-releases and its huge pool of invite-only users.
The question on the minds of former OiNK users is whether they’re in any trouble, or whether they should be expecting litigation from the RIAA or similar institutions. There’s good news and bad news.
On the bad news side of things, if you downloaded copyrighted material as an OiNK user, you broke the law and are subject to litigation. If you downloaded pre-releases of albums, you might be more likely to be sued or have charges pressed against you, since that’s essentially the point that the recording agencies involved are trying to make.
The good news is quite a bit more heartening. OiNK had more than 180,000 users, so it’s unlikely–more accurately, impossible–for all of the users to be sued. There’s just not enough lawyer power, even in organizations like the RIAA. What’s more, busts like this are usually set up to take down the site, not the users, (hit the pusher, not the taker, in old fashioned drug lingo) and that’s been accomplished.
The recording industry wants OiNK users to be afraid (BE VERY AFRAAAAAIID!), so they’ll post messages like the one on OiNK’s front page and might go after one or two of the users on OiNK, probably users that actually leaked albums. They probably won’t go after American users, since International law is sticky, and they can’t sue everybody, so keep your fingers crossed.
Contrary to what bloggers on both sides believe, this isn’t a black and white situation, however. The RIAA is right to protect its property, however unattractively their industry conducts itself, and people downloading files aren’t hardcore criminals. It’s probably time to start looking into building a fee into Internet connections for unlimited downloading of music and distributing it to the record industry or finding other alternatives to 1) stealing music and 2) trying to bust every single person who steals music. Neither of the existing options works, and it’s time to look into something else.
OiNK users, breathe easy, but realize that what you were doing wasn’t entirely moral. Maybe you should hit a Borders on your way home and pick up one of those shiny discs of music, if for nothing else than to remember how good it feels.
