Tuesday, October 23, 2007

NY Mag, Idolator Links to Us - Idolator Talks To a Lawyer and Scares What Little Shit There is Left Out of Us

New York Magazine: The Official OiNK Memorial is giving round-the-clock news updates on all things OiNK.

Idolator
: The OiNK.CD Memorial Museum And News looks to already be your one-stop for OiNK-related LOLz, with YTMND links, pics, video, and an interview with a young man spearheading an OiNK suicide pact:


Idolator also posts an interview with some fancy pants lawyer. He basically says any user can potentially be prosecuted against, including PayPal for handling the donation funds.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

I HOPE THAT WHEN THE AUTHORITIES GO THROUGH THE LOGS, THAT THEY HOLD ROSEMARY RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES (SHE WAS INDEED THE BRAINS BEHIND THIS OPERATION). SHE IS A CROOK, AND DESERVES TO GO TO JAIL. BLAME ROSEMARY.

Anonymous said...

The main question I have is, IF (unlikely) they go after individual users, what criteria will they use?

Does .flac vs .mp3 make a difference? Far more people want .mp3 than .flac, and .mp3 is the main format used. Most users have never heard of .flac and have no idea what to do with it. The vast majority of music copyright violation online is done using .mp3.

Will ratio matter?

Will heavy downloaders be a higher priority than major seeders?

Is the whole pre-release thing an actual issue? Pre-releases were a *very* small fraction of the torrents on OiNK.

I think it is very, very unlikely that individual users will be prosecuted.

Anonymous said...

I am hearing that the donations were approaching $30k a month. Not sure if that is Pounds or Bucks, but that is alot of coin either way and sparks my imagination as to where all this went to. Oink might have some splainin to do. This was heresay, but not out of the question considering the amount of loyal users.

Anonymous said...

for that great site and the joy its brought its users the owner deserved 30000 / month.also for the risk..

i really hope he has the guts to re-open again. maybe in sweden at pirate bays host. he only had torrent files in his site that is not a crime go and arrest google motherfuckers it even got child porn!

Anonymous said...

I'm curious to see what happens in the coming months with regards to who they go after. I keep reading about how people who donated are the ones to go after, but that doesn't make much sense.

Isn't the smart money on going after the people who shared/downloaded the most?

Anonymous said...

What worries do I have if I donated with a VisaBuxx card (i.e. not directly through paypal) and the card is no longer valid/doesn't contain most of my info?

modtang said...

This is a damn shame. I've been there since the beginning and I'm really bummed this happened. OiNK, I hope you're ok. This is a sad day for a lot of people, I'm sure.

Anonymous said...

i feel like they're spending way too much time focusing on cracking down on music downloading when there's so many REAL crimes going on in the world, ya know? i work in the music industry and what really gets to me is that bands don't have a problem with being torrented, i uploaded my bands ep and i loved seeing all the downloads of it weekly, even if we didnt see a dime. its free promotion, the only people who care are the big executives at labels who make money from cds, unlike bands who get a small percentage of their money from music sold, most of their money comes from live shows

Anonymous said...

I'm not knowledgeable on the fine print of PayPal, but I'm willing to bet there's no way they can be held responsible.

Anonymous said...

no no no

the problem is that the traffic was directed the tracker, obviously.

if the tracker was in the netherlands, the infringement took place outside of US soil. to introduce evidence against a US citizen, of copyright infringement that took place in a foreign country?

you're talking some serious legal work on the RIAA's side. this isn't as easy as settling with college kids out of court.


Sparrow: Out
said...

If they were looking to go after donors first, I assume it would be because of the accessibility of their personal information - address, etc. Yes, it would make more sense to go after heavy uploaders/leechers, but that's a little harder I imagine to get info for.

Anonymous said...

If this site really wants to do something big, it would be to take up a paypal collection for the defense of the kid. The legal fees are going to be huge.

Anonymous said...

Um... about 1 1/2 years ago I donated to oink using paypal... and my personal credit card. Stupid I know.

I was new to all this stuff then.

Should I be pissing myself now?

I never uploaded any music, but I did download it. I uploaded some books and apps though.

Anonymous said...

This is indeed a sad day for us Oink lovers. The shutting down of Oink isn't just upsetting for the loss of access to such great music, but moreso because it was a great community whose spirit celebrated a genuine love for music.
It's interesting that the press have had to go with this angle about pre-release album leaks. It's such a desperate attempt at a foundation to foster outrage on behalf of that starving music industry. How about, 'Today authorities shut down a website drew together a community of 180,000 music lovers who shared predominantly albums they had orignally purchased themselves (as per the restrictions on guaranteeing against transcodes), from the Isley Bros to MF Doom.'
It's a sad day to have to say goodbye to that community who filled all our musical needs.

Anonymous said...

7 Rules to Live by:

1.) Never purchase any MP3 less than 320 kbps
2.) Never purchase any CD you can't listen to all the way through.
3.) Never purchase anything played on the radio
4.) Always question authority
5.) Always question your privacy
6.) Never stop downloading music

Anonymous said...

6 Rules to Live by:

1.) Never purchase any MP3 less than 320 kbps
2.) Never purchase any CD you can't listen to all the way through.
3.) Never purchase anything played on the radio
4.) Always question authority
5.) Always question your privacy
6.) Never stop downloading music

Anonymous said...

To all you boo-hooing out there. Here's an idea for you.

You could actually start legally buying music instead of stealing from the artists. Sites like this will eventually kill the music industry and then there'd be nothing for anyone to download - legal or otherwise.

Anonymous said...

fuck Oink. i hope they also go find his pompous, fascist mod and admin staff and throw away the key on the whole lot of them. the chickens are coming home to roost. yeah i said it.

Anonymous said...

Hahahahhaha
They cant do anything with Paypal.

Yes, you might have donated (And hey what if i knew the guy that owned and oink and i was just sending him money for a gift? nothing to do with oink) but that dosent prove that you downloaded/uploaded ANYTHING!
You couldve just donated and forgot about it and not downloaded anything!
they have nothing

Anonymous said...

2 year investigation? If so how did the police get it so wrong?

Saying that you had to pay to access the site and that it hosted illegal material. Those two points are comlpetely incorrect, yet both are highly inaccurate.

So if the RIAA had been investigating for two years they must have known that. If they didn't, then their investigation was poor at best. If they did know, then they must have misled the police for a detective to come out with those lines.

And surely this propaganda being widely spread would have a biased influence on potential jurors if this ever came to trial???

Anonymous said...

The real problem here, and I don't have the time to research it at the moment, is one of the recent US laws (it might be an amendment to the patriot act or the dmca) made it a criminal offense punishable by doing real time to download any pre-release music. The fact that you could click your username and see a list of everything you have downloaded/uploaded and the numbers should make you feel uneasy. The fact that they are saying the site hosted illegal material seems to me that they will be using that law. Pre-release stuff is all over the news stories I have read. That is because it is criminally prosecutable in the US.

Oink was a big warez site too. I wonder how that affects things. This sucks.

Anonymous said...

Going after paypal? Seriously? WTF. As if raiding homes etc. etc. wasn't overboard enough.

Anonymous said...

It is highly unlikely that the authorities will go after individuals, the effort involved in trying to bring them to justice would be huge. I was an oink member, and I used to share 24/7, I downloaded music and software from the site, but the total cost of what I downloaded was insignificant against the cost of finding me.

They have cut the head from Oink, the trackers are dead, without them our torrents are useless.

What we should do is all agree a new site to use, modify our torrent files and oink would be back in business in a matter of hours.

Look at the Piratebay - it was down for less that 24 hours after a massive operation. no individual user has been targeted even after that.

OiNK was an easy target, so they attacked it. big fucking deal, all it means for me is that I have to go to other torrent sites to get my music, and the quality will be worse.

The sign on the main oink site is simply to scare you into being legal....

Anonymous said...

jnwymX Your blog is great. Articles is interesting!