To share or not to share - that is the question that only idiodic fools ask themselves these days. In a world where a single mother living paycheck to paycheck is forced to pay $222K for downloading and sharing 24 songs, no one is safe. If you’ve got a Kazaa account, you might as well get a second job now, start saving, and then count how many of those pennies are lucky. What a risky business this has become. Mtv News reports that UK-run music file-sharing site, OiNK.cd has been shut down as a result of a criminal investigation into suspected illegal music distribution.
According to police, OiNK was an “extremely lucrative” site that provided illegal downloads of pre-release music and media to its members, who’d joined the site on an invite-only basis and were asked to contribute donations via debit or credit card. That money, believed to be in the region of hundreds of thousands of pounds, is being tracked down by the IFPI and the BPI.
Now, the estimated 180,000 paid members are being investigated and identified. Call me old fashioned, but this is yet another reason why I love my cds.
[…] Earlier this week, the founder of OiNK, the world’s largest “peer-to-peer” music download site, was arrested after a 2-yr criminal investigation. Well now that the young lad has posted bail and is temporarily out of the slammer, he speaks up about the site. 24 yr old Alan Ellis, who set up the site 3 1/2 years ago told the British tabloid The Daily Telegraph that he hasn’t done anything wrong. According to him, OiNK is no different than Google: “If Google directed someone to a site they can illegally download music they are doing the same as what I have been accused of. I am not making any Oink users break the law. People don’t pay to use the site…My site is no different to something like Google.” […]