Oink ~ Not Guilty.

[ztx651]

Music file-sharer 'Oink' cleared of fraud




A man who ran a music-sharing website with almost 200,000 members has been found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud at Teesside Crown Court.
Alan Ellis, 26, was the first person in the UK to be prosecuted for illegal file-sharing.
He operated the site, called Oink, from his flat in Middlesbrough from 2004 until it was closed down in a police raid in 2007.
In that time it facilitated the download of 21 million music files.
The site allowed active members to find other people on the web who were prepared to share files.
Users were required to make a donation to be able to invite friends to join the site.
During the trial, which lasted seven days, it was heard that Mr Ellis received $18,000 (£11,000) a month in donations from people using his website.
Months after getting his degree he had saved £20,000 despite only just starting his software engineer job.
Originally, the site was hosted on his home computer, but by 2007 it had moved to a commercial server in Amsterdam because of the amount of internet traffic it was attracting.
Mr Ellis told the court there was no intention to defraud copyright holders.


Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/8461879.stm)

[OlegL]

This is great news!!!

[TheFoX]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/img/ukpa_logo.gif?hl=enOink Update
January 15, 2009 16:00

" Oink creator cleared of charge

A man accused of running one of the world's largest music sharing websites has been acquitted of conspiracy to defraud.
Alan Ellis, 26, was accused of making hundreds of thousands of pounds from the Oink website, which he ran from his own bedroom.

However, a jury at Teesside Crown Court unanimously cleared the software engineer of the single charge.
Mr Ellis, of Grange Road, Middlesbrough, smiled as the jury foreman returned the not guilty verdict. He declined to speak as he left the court.

He had told the jury that he set up Oink in his bedroom to brush up on his computing skills while a student at Teesside University.
When police raided his terraced home in October 2007, they found almost 300,000 dollars in his accounts and the site had 200,000 members, who had downloaded 21 million files.

Mr Ellis said the money was used to pay for the server's rental and any "surplus" was intended to eventually buy a server.
He added that the website was developed from a free template, which had a Torrent file-sharing facility included in it. It allowed members to find other people on the web who were prepared to share files - allowing users to get hold of music for free.

Mr Ellis, who was born in Leeds and grew up in south Manchester, studying A-levels in Cheadle, said there was no intention to defraud copyright holders. He had a full-time job as a software engineer and said administering the site was just a hobby.
The prosecution said he told police officers: "All I do is really like Google, to really provide a connection between people. None of the music is on my website."

:source: Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iQdGjKxv2Ea9qoDPQctpYenbBsEg
:view: Homepage: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iQdGjKxv2Ea9qoDPQctpYenbBsEg

[Slickerey]

Congratulations Alan Ellis. We shall always remember you for your achivements, especially this one.

[Castronaut]

Amazing victory for the pirates! (even though OiNK is still dead :() Very happy for him. :)

[Duckater]

I wonder if he will now try and get compensation for lost revenue since oink was closed down

[whiteboy]

Awesome news!!!

[WakeMeUp]

Yay :D

[PerMaFrOsT]

Great news for him :happy:

[willyums]

Lucky git :D

[ashford]

During the trial, which lasted seven days, it was heard that Mr Ellis received $18,000 (£11,000) a month in donations from people using his website.In other words he indeed is a thief earning money from running a bittorrent website. And please don't talk crap that he needed it all for servers.

Thief same as Feeling and many others who you blind people respect so much and donate their mafia sites.

[ztx651]

In other words he indeed is a thief earning money from running a bittorrent website. And please don't talk crap that he needed it all for servers.

Thief same as Feeling and many others who you blind people respect so much and donate their mafia sites.

If he had been pocketing money from the site the trial would have taken a very different turn.

[ca_aok]

It's quite simple. No one forces you to donate. If you're worried about where your money will end up, don't.

Anyway it's great that this worked out for him in the end. Would have been a sad day to see him prosecuted, though that's sort of what I expected to happen.

[tr1ggerh1pp1e]

There's one thing that eludes me - why was he tried in the UK provided his operation (server infrastructure) has been located in the Netherlands? Makes much more sense to me if charges were brought against him under Dutch jurisdiction?!

[Brandon_Heat]

great news :D

[anon]

http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-general-bittorrent-43/t-oink-not-guilty-387891 :lol:

But I guess this is the version that can be linked to from FST's portal. :)

Good news indeed.

[CPC464]

great news

http://oink.cd/

[megabyteme]

/me raises hook and fires cannon in celebration of our victory! Now off to drink me rum...

[TrollinThunder]

While this is good news for him, I think it is hardly a victory for the bittorrent community.

The charge of conspiracy to defraud is a difficult one to succeed on for a variety of reasons. Applying it to running a tracker is a real stretch. The conspiracy part alone is difficult, but the fundamental element of fraud is intent. Proving that he actually intended and purposely caused economic loss to the copyright holders is difficult. These are charges that are easier to defend in other contexts (financial and drug related matters) so in this case, I'm not surprised to see the not guilty verdict.

Why did they charge him with that instead of copyright claims? I'm not sure, but I have a feeling they were trying to impose a harsher punishment than would be otherwise available. Also, indirect or secondary copyright claims (facilitating copyright infringement by offering a website is different than actually hosting them) are a bit harder to prove and does not carry a real heavy penalty. Fraud generally offers trebled (tripled) financial damages and of course jail time.

The jurisdictional issue when it comes to the internet is an interesting matter. Hypothetically, you could be subject to jurisdiction anywhere that the website is accessible. But usually it requires more interaction with the citizens of that jurisdiction (maybe just a specific transaction with one of them).

In the case of Oink, the Dutch would have jurisdiction over the servers, so shutting them down or removing them from the datacenter or whatever would have to be done in compliance with Dutch law. But operating the site from the UK would still make you liable despite where the servers are hosted. People worry about where sites are hosted because they are concerned about the servers being seized. The actions taken remotely to control the servers are still going to be an issue.

In fact, with copyright claims from various countries, this guy could have been charged in the US or Spain or Sweden or wherever the copyright holders are. The problem is serving him and getting jurisdiction over his person, which basically has to be done when he steps into the jurisdiction. But that's easy to do while he is at home in the UK.

[predateur]

18k $ per month on 2007 , it would be 30k$ in 2009 ;)
so running a site and get all that money lol and brandon ask for 50$ (oh its a charity action lol) , c'mon guy's

[ztx651]

Why did they charge him with that instead of copyright claims? I'm not sure, but I have a feeling they were trying to impose a harsher punishment than would be otherwise available. Also, indirect or secondary copyright claims (facilitating copyright infringement by offering a website is different than actually hosting them) are a bit harder to prove and does not carry a real heavy penalty. Fraud generally offers trebled (tripled) financial damages and of course jail time.

At present there is no possible charge of facilitating copyright infringement under UK criminal law.

[iesu]

good news for oink, but i feel this is only the beginning for movie makers... sorry independant copyright organisations :rolleyes: taking action against online filesharers. Should be an interesting future :(

[Swift]

Good job !

[Burnsy]

Good news :)

[Rart]

I wonder if he will now try and get compensation for lost revenue since oink was closed down

But wouldn't that constitute profiting from the tracker if he claimed that he "lost revenue"?

[Kwb]

Happy for him and for piracy!! Yawn!!

[megabyteme]

Happy for him and for piracy!! Yawn!!

Yawn?!!! :huh:

We should be celebrating a victory here. The tides have been pushed back in our favor.

Take joy and be merry, or Mary (your choice)- but either way CELEBRATE!

[LubTheStaringCat]

This Is great news, and great times head for being a pirate :whoosh:

[Rart]

I'm curious - Does this mean that oink will be returning?

[megabyteme]

I'm celebrating. I made this flag as part of my Avy for this site, please feel free to use it, modify it, w/e. Enjoy!

http://i47.tinypic.com/23htyr6.jpg

As a matter of trivia...the "V" is taken from an original WWII victory flag. :) Found here (http://www.myantiquemall.com/vintageww2ww1postersantiquepropagandastarcenterantiquemallsnohomishwa/vintageww2ww1postersantiquepropagandastarcentermallsnohomishwa6.jpg)

[Funkin']

I'm curious - Does this mean that oink will be returning?

Wouldn't that be awesome? But I doubt it. I'm sure the last thing on his mind is bringing OiNK back from the dead.

Anyways, this really is a huge victory. Sure, the site was taken offline in the first place and is still dead(but two other huge sites popped up in its place), but at least the owner wasn't convicted. And that's pretty huge I would think.

[NA_Magus]

:]

[Artemis]

18k $ per month on 2007 , it would be 30k$ in 2009 ;)
so running a site and get all that money lol and brandon ask for 50$ (oh its a charity action lol) , c'mon guy's

Maths wasn't your strong point I take it ? OiNK was able to generate this amount of money from a userbase of approximately 180,000 users the current userbase of FtN is 4,564 , in other words a mere fraction or 1/36 of the active userbase, ergo smaller userbase, smaller amount of active donators, and as others have said if you don't like the rules of donation, don't donate , no one is forcing you to donate.

[brento]

awesome!!

[SunKing]

Excellent news! :)

[NkFy]

Please OiNK come back
:D
Congrats Alan

[YoYoY]

It's a great news to hear , Hope we will see it again one day :)

[Villalltheway]

:01: great news, so does that mean he gets to keep all his money?

[Zac090]

:01: great news, so does that mean he gets to keep all his money?
Or think about re-startng the tracker:whistling

[$SnoopDo2G$]

at least some good news between all the nonsense closing doors these days...

[Night0wl]

Great news :D

[snagit]

It's great to hear that he walked free, but any idea if OiNK will be returning?

[anon]

any idea if OiNK will be returning?

I don't think that's top priority for Mr. Ellis right now.