Early today OiNk, an invite-only BitTorrent tracker responsible for leaking 60 major albums already this year, was shut down. Now the site is responding again, but with only one 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 (FIOD ECD) into suspected illegal music distribution. A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site's users." The only other content on a site that used to provide access to gigs of data are the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and British Phonographic Industry (BPI) logos.
OiNK, which serviced approximately 180,000 users, was hosted on servers in Amsterdam that were raided last week and allegedly run by a 24-year-old IT worker out of a Middlesbrough flat. He is now under arrest.
“OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online. This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure," Jeremy Banks, Head of the IFPI’s Internet Anti-Piracy Unit, said in the IFPI's official statement. "This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online."
The raids, the culmination of a two-year investigation by the IFPI and BPI, also took the suspect's employer, an undisclosed multi-national company, and his father's home.
In July the site was forced to change from OiNK.me.uk after conflicts with the domain registrar led to a Democratic Republic of Congo address at OiNK.cd.
While the message on the site makes it look like users might follow down the operator's path to jail, the IFPI and BPI haven't made any official announcements to that effect.
[via BBC]
Add a comment