I mean, they did the same to dudes who ran thepiratebay.org, in Sweden. that site was up again a week later, there was nothing they could do. I was sure the same was going to happen here
But really, for anyone who just wants to swipe new major label releases, all you have to do is google the name of it + sendspace or megaupload.
how did i never think to do this? thanks for the tip!
i got on oink and downloaded till i had about 4.8 gigs...that way i never had to up my ratio (i think my ratio ended up being like 1.8 or something pathetic like that)
my friend, and my sisters boyfriend were huge, HUGE contributors to the site. i doubt anything will happen to anybody but my friend seems kinda scared right now..hahaha
Perhaps most importantly, what p2p will 180,000 people now flock to? SoulSeek (shit), LimeWire (also shit)? Private hubs (RHKTDeal)? Or will some folks be scared straight and start buying?
It's funny that on the same week that Entertainment Weekly mentions the brand new "music revolution", Oink shuts down. It would be great if it did make people a bit paranoid so that they would buy actual music, be it files or vinyl and CD's. Is it a scare tactic, a bit of "hey you download fucks, it's the holidays, and we want you to buy the new Led Zeppelin compilation and deluxe DVD, OR ELSE?!" At least most of us know how to buy music, how about those who were brought up in a world where downloading is the norm and stores with CD sections "are for old people"?
what im guessing is that they'll pressure him w/ serious hard time and he'll end up flipping on the IP addresses behind some of the users who were uploading albums before the release date
which will do absolutely nothing because most of those people are not under UK (or wherever the fuck dude is) jurisdiction and you can't do shit to prosecute anyone solely on IP addresses. on top of all of that, admins claimed time and time again that if the site was taken down, there would be no way to link users to any sort of logs and i tend to believe them a lot more than any of the shit reported in the media so far.
it doesnt take much to get from an IP to an ISP to a user ... just a few court papers
and if interpol is involved then its an international investigation.
its the dudes who uploaded the trackers that are probably gonna be in trouble, esp if they were pre-release albums
it doesnt take much to get from an IP to an ISP to a user ... just a few court papers
which still doesn't do anything because it doesn't prove anything beyond "this connection did this." it's good for sending out scare notices, that's about it
and if interpol is involved then its an international investigation.
not necessarily.
its the dudes who uploaded the trackers that are probably gonna be in trouble, esp if they were pre-release albums
anyone uploading leaked shit is going to have measures in place to prevent them from being identified.
it doesnt take much to get from an IP to an ISP to a user ... just a few court papers
which still doesn't do anything because it doesn't prove anything beyond "this connection did this." it's good for sending out scare notices, that's about it
no. u are responsible for your connection. RIAA has settled with 20,000 or so people already. the one woman who refused to settle went to court on this and lost to the tune of $200,000
and if interpol is involved then its an international investigation.
not necessarily.
by definition
its the dudes who uploaded the trackers that are probably gonna be in trouble, esp if they were pre-release albums
anyone uploading leaked shit is going to have measures in place to prevent them from being identified.
u would think the dude running oink would have remembered to hide his whois info but no, when he switched domains he left his name, phone # and address public on the registration
and im sure a lot of folks didn't think they would get caught
They should be very, very scared. There are at least two reasons why this is not just your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill file sharing copyright infringement: this involves music that has not yet been commercially released, and money changed hands.
Because the music has not yet been commercially released, as a practical matter, the fair use defense effectively disappears. The leading case involved The Nation beating Harper & Row to press by publishing merely "between 300 and 400 words" of President's Ford's memoirs; the Supreme Court held that "The Nation effectively arrogated to itself the right of first publication, an important marketable subsidiary right." Harper & Row Pubs., Inc. v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539, 548-49 (1985). "First publication is inherently different from other [exclusive copyright] rights in that only one person can be the first publisher;... the commercial value of the right lies primarily in exclusivity. Because the potential damage to the author from judicially enforced 'sharing' of the first publication right ... is substantial, the balance of equities in evaluating such a claim of fair use inevitably shifts." Id. at 553.
That fact also makes it criminal infringement, because it is "the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution." 17 U.S.C. ?? 506(a)(1)(C). (A "'work being prepared for commercial distribution' means ... a musical work ... or a sound recording, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution (i) the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution; and (ii) the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed." 17 U.S.C. ?? 506(a)(3)(A).) Of course, it's also criminal because "the infringement was committed ... for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain." 17 U.S.C. ?? 506(a)(1)(A).
Prison terms for this stuff run up to 3-5 years for first offenses, 10 years for repeats. 18 U.S.C. ?? 2319(a), (c).
The legal issue of what constitutes infringement in the US stays the same--there still has to be an infringing act in the US, or importation into the US. There are probably differences among the protections that US, UK, Netherlands, and EU law afford to subscriber information, but unfortunately, I don't know the other countries' law, so I don't know whether those differences are material.
As far as money goes, remember that "commercial advantage or private financial gain" can include the benefits of barter and the like. So the fact that, in your [description of OiNK's ratio rules], "they had to assist in infringement in order to keep infringing" might be enough.
mauraidolator: So basically I am curious as to whether or not you think it's likely that authorities in the US will try to go after American users of OiNK; there's a threatening message on the front page of the site right now, and the freaking-out has commenced, as you might imagine. MCBarrister: I think it depends on how quickly the RIAA gets its hands on any of the server logs. That's partly facetious, but I don't see the U.S. Department of Justice using its resources right now for criminal investigations of copyright infringement. The overseas raids were criminal matters--I don't expect the same here. Plus, there's an interesting issue of whether the UK and Dutch authorities would share the information with a private party. There are long-running debates over data treatment and security between the US and EU. But if RIAA does get the logs and data, then there will be hell to pay for anyone who used credit cards [to donate]; those who maintained membership via upload will be a little harder to trace because you'd have to follow the IP addresses, and ISPs are not always willing to hand over their customers without court orders mauraidolator: i'm pretty sure that the donations were done via PayPal. MCBarrister: Hrmmm. PayPal is owned by eBay, which has pretty liberal policies about helping IP rights owners. I think it would still take a court order, but PayPal / eBay would be more likely to hand over personally identifying information that universities have proven more unwilling to give. mauraidolator: What is interesting to me is the rough estimates of where the users came from -- I've read that the US-based membership of the site was as high as 50%, even though the site was located in the UK. MCBarrister: It's not that surprising, depending on the content. I graduated from college before there was a graphical Internet, so I never really participated in these activities--but I have a rough sense that lots of US-based university students were playing since they have access to the best net connections around. My cable modem would choke on the kind of uploading necessary to support what I would want back down, assuming I had anything that was of value to the network in my vinyl rips. mauraidolator: same here MCBarrister: My bottom line--there should be some level of fear, but the action is going to be from the RIAA (again), not the feds, unless a new US Attorney General (once confirmed) has a real passion for prosecuting IP violations. mauraidolator: Has there been any word on his attitude towards IP violations yet? MCBarrister: I haven't noticed--the mainstream coverage has focused on his willingness to back the administration's claims of independence from the rule of law when it affects them personally, and a short time searching on Google turns up nothing more relevant.
no. u are responsible for your connection. RIAA has settled with 20,000 or so people already. the one woman who refused to settle went to court on this and lost to the tune of $200,000
you are giving examples of the RIAA going after individual users vs a law enforcement raid on a site admin. in every "file sharing raid" so far, no one has gotten in trouble beyond the admins themselves. the reason for this is because in any site that gets large enough, they have enough brains to make sure their server logs do not keep enough information to implicate their users. oink's server logs are the same.
u would think the dude running oink would have remembered to hide his whois info but no, when he switched domains he left his name, phone # and address public on the registration
and im sure a lot of folks didn't think they would get caught
what does this have to do with users of the site getting busted?
at this point, the only thing people might get in trouble for is donating large sums of money because that's what they seem to be focusing on but even that is kinda suspect
Comments
I'm not saying he's a dumbass but I wouldn't talk to anyone but my lawyer at this point. Common sense is an oxymoron.
how did i never think to do this? thanks for the tip!
i got on oink and downloaded till i had about 4.8 gigs...that way i never had to up my ratio (i think my ratio ended up being like 1.8 or something pathetic like that)
my friend, and my sisters boyfriend were huge, HUGE contributors to the site. i doubt anything will happen to anybody but my friend seems kinda scared right now..hahaha
even better is that shareminer site, www.shareminer.com or something similiar, who automatically searches a bunch of the major upload sites
It's funny that on the same week that Entertainment Weekly mentions the brand new "music revolution", Oink shuts down. It would be great if it did make people a bit paranoid so that they would buy actual music, be it files or vinyl and CD's. Is it a scare tactic, a bit of "hey you download fucks, it's the holidays, and we want you to buy the new Led Zeppelin compilation and deluxe DVD, OR ELSE?!" At least most of us know how to buy music, how about those who were brought up in a world where downloading is the norm and stores with CD sections "are for old people"?
and if interpol is involved then its an international investigation.
its the dudes who uploaded the trackers that are probably gonna be in trouble, esp if they were pre-release albums
not necessarily.
anyone uploading leaked shit is going to have measures in place to prevent them from being identified.
by definition
u would think the dude running oink would have remembered to hide his whois info but no, when he switched domains he left his name, phone # and address public on the registration
and im sure a lot of folks didn't think they would get caught
this article also implies oink users could be in more trouble than other filesharers
what does this have to do with users of the site getting busted?
at this point, the only thing people might get in trouble for is donating large sums of money because that's what they seem to be focusing on but even that is kinda suspect
definitely go for the lobster phones...