Oink.cd founder Alan Ellis cleared of fraud charges | Hacker News Reader

Oink.cd founder Alan Ellis cleared of fraud charges

news.bbc.co.uk

56 pointsnoisebleed34 comments

Alan Ellis deserved to make money for what he did - he built a successful, efficient, popular service for people to find music. Instead of suing him, the record companies should have bought oink.cd of him and added some kind of monthly subscription model and/or a pay-to-buy-ratio system.

Importantly... does this mean that other people can now run free torrent sites like Oink with no legal risk? I'm not sure how British law works, in terms of setting precedents and the like...

I agree that Ellis should have tried to turn this into something positive before all of this went down. There were several signs that OiNK was on radar, including [successful] efforts to block the renewal of the .me.uk domain name.

I also think that record companies may now be seasoned enough to accept something like this; the thing is that the pitch needs to be made before they pay off INTERPOL to take you down.

Such a pitch should also come from one whose hands are clean, so to speak. If Ellis had made the pitch they probably would have said, "Good idea, but instead of paying you, you just give it to us for free and we'll put in a good word after your arrest."

As long as copyright exists in its current form there is no way for a record company to purchase and make a site like this legit. The key thing about oink was the rarity of the material, old vinyl records that were converted an uploaded. Stuff that's been out of print after its first publishing 30 years ago....

I don't understand this logic. He may have built a successful, efficient and popular service. But he still did so on the basis of other people's work and the entire basis of the site was to take away the creator's control over their own work. Sure his site itself contained nothing illegal and all that. But the fact remains that the people who create a piece of intellectual property must retain the rights to do with it as they please. They shouldn't have to be taken at the whims of the community just because a lot of people happen to like/want it. If Salinger had decided he never wanted any of his books published and no one should ever read them, that's his choice, not ours. If we can't respect the people that create and/or own the intellectual property, then we are part of a disgusting society.

If Salinger had decided he never wanted any of his books published and no one should ever read them, that's his choice, not ours.

Absolutely. Until Salinger hits the metaphorical "publish" button, his books belong to him and no one else. But the minute he decides to share them with the world he enters into the realm of copyright law, which is (at least originally) designed to create a good enough bargain to incentivise him to publish, but which ultimately results in all these works entering the public domain.

There is no such thing as intellectual property - merely intellectual licensing agreements.

I disagree. While I think copyright laws are overly draconian, the creator of the intellectual property deserves to have control over where, how, or if its distributed.

Its not Mr. Ellis's prerogative to introduce a new business model around their content.

"Users were required to make a donation to be able to invite friends to join the site."

I'm pretty sure this wasn't the case. Someone who is not me invited several people and didn't ever donate.

Glad to hear he's been cleared, though.

I just submitted some feedback to the BBC saying this was false. I'm guessing many other people did as well. Hopefully it's not some sort of honeypot.

Actually they just stated what the prosecutor said, not that it's true.

Well I either misread it or they changed the article since my original post. (By the time you posted this comment, about an hour had passed since I submitted that correction).

yeah that's certainly wrong. oink worked like any other private tracker, through invitations that were accrued by maintaining a good ratio

If the donation thing is incorrect or exaggerated, how did he make the $300,000 he supposedly had (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/8446247.stm) when the police raided his home? Seems impressive if it's just ad revenue.

Donations weren't required. He did accept donations, however.

That $300,000 thing hasn't really been substantiated AFAICT. It's directly from the mouth of the prosecutor. As someone who helps run a website where we ask users for money (but don't require it), $300,000 seems insane.

and the donations did buy additional access to features on the site, yes?

I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure a good ratio got you all the same stuff a donation would have. So a donation might have made up for a low ratio in some ways.

I don't remember any ads appearing on OiNK.

And I also seriously doubt that the bulk of that $300k, if it was really there, had anything to do with donations from OiNK. OiNK was pretty big but imo nowhere near big enough to yield that kind of bounty off of voluntary donations.

I don't know. Trent Reznor was an admitted member/user of OiNK. It's not like he couldn't have donated a decent amount to keep the site running.

You got additional invites if you donated.

If you donated 5 euros, you were allowed to invite 2 friends to the site.

If you were a member of the site for a certain amount of time with a certain ratio and amount uploaded/downloaded, you were able to invite 2 friends a month and had access to the same features as donators.

Here's the better, less mainstream-media article from torrentfreak: http://torrentfreak.com/oink-admin-found-not-guilty-walks-fr...

I'd rather read what TorrentFreak sources (but doesn't link to directly) instead:

http://ts1.gazettelive.co.uk/local-news/middlesbrough-man-de...

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2010/01/14/i...

And presumably the BBC article, since its the earliest report of the decision on the case that I can find.

So presumably he could re-open the site, and not face further prosecution, provided the service didn't change?

wouldn't each new torrent uploaded be a separate case of copyright infringement that could be tried?

The torrents themselves are not copyright. They contain no copyrighted data. He didn't actually share the copyrighted data, just provided a facility for others to share the torrents.

i'm aware of that, but that doesn't mean someone won't still try to drag him to court for them.

That depends on why he was cleared. If he was cleared due to some sort of technicality or due to lack of evidence then there is no reason why he cannot be prosecuted a second time. Also if any of the relevant laws have changed in any way since 2007 (which I imagine they have) then the prosecutors can try again under these new laws. Being cleared doesn't in and of itself mean that what you where accused of isn't illegal.

:) This may be the most positive news in the history of file sharing.

Yeah, but who compensates two years of downtime?

.. so can oink re-open now? : D

I sincerely hope so. It was the best torrent site I have ever had the pleasure of using.

There has been a few that have stepped into its place and provided the same high-level of quality and selection (for ex. what.cd). But they are difficult to get in to.

For those are unfamiliar with these sites, they have pretty much every album imaginable. Including tiny indie bands and vinyl rips from the 50s. They have very strict sharing requirements (you have to contribute not just leech).

> But they are difficult to get in to.

Not really. I joined one just to see what it was like. All I had to do was show up in an IRC channel and go through some 'testing process.' Apparently if I was referred by someone I could have forgone that process. My 'membership' recently lapsed because I never used it, but it wasn't hard to get in.

They did have some onerous rules though. Like getting kicked out if someone you referred breaks a rule. I think you even got kicked out if someone referred by a person that you referred got kicked out.

> They have very strict sharing requirements (you have to contribute not just leech).

The problem being that there are many torrents with only seeders connected to them. So it would be hard to keep your 'quota' without a concerted effort. It's not just 'leave your torrent client open when the downloading finishes.'

Seems like the way to keep sharing ratios up on sites like these is to pay for seedbox servers to keep a fast upload line going.

At those prices, it's cheaper to buy music legitimately.

Actually, the best strategy on Oink was to troll the latest uploads, download them, and then make sure to seed for a week or two. The trick was guessing which ones were likely to be popular, but there were some obvious freebies and as long as you didn't download really big torrents you never took too much of a hit.

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