What happened to oink-com?

Answer 1

Government having a crack down on illegal downloads and so the site has gone off the air. Government having a crack down on illegal downloads and so the site has gone off the air. U.K., Dutch Police Shut Down Biggest Web Album Pirate (Update1)

By Erik Larson Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- British and Dutch police shut down Oink.com, the world's biggest Web site that leaks pirated albums before their release date, two U.K. music industry groups said. The Web site's 24-year-old operator was arrested today by a U.K. organized-crime unit, and its servers were seized by Dutch police in Amsterdam last week, according to a statement by the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Oink.com, an invitation-only site with about 180,000 members worldwide, was popular with ``hardcore'' file-sharers, according to the statement. It specialized in distributing albums leaked weeks ahead of their release dates, including more than 60 albums in 2007, the group said. ``This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure,'' Jeremy Banks, an IFPI piracy investigator, said in the statement. ``This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to.'' Oink's operator, who wasn't named, was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement, according to police in Cleveland, U.K. He allegedly profited by taking donations through EBay Inc.'s PayPal service and utilized BitTorrent, whose peer-to- peer technology lets users download videos, music and other large files stored on individual computers, rather than a Web site or server networks. `Digital Freeloaders' U.K police and trade groups said the music was downloaded by users around the world. Adults in the U.S. who admit to downloading pirated music increased from 5.1 percent in 2005 to 9 percent in 2007, according to a study released this month by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Geoff Taylor, chief executive officer of the British Phonographic Institute, said in a statement today that copyright theft starves creative industries of income and threatens future investment in artists. ``Authorities must keep up the pressure to deter the digital freeloaders,'' Taylor said. The raids were coordinated by Interpol, the France-based international criminal police organization, following a two-year probe by the British trade groups. To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net .

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a0ryQDZYQPyw