British and Dutch police have shut down a “widely-used” source of illegally-downloaded music.
A flat on Teesside and several properties in Amsterdam were raided as part of an Interpol investigation into the members-only website OiNK. The UK-run site has leaked 60 major pre-release albums this year alone, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). A 24-year-old man from Middlesbrough was arrested on Tuesday morning.
Many of OiNK’s users have been enquiring if their details are safe on the site. The message: “A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site’s users†will not exactly fill them with confidence.
However, everyone in the BitTorrent world will be familiar with the propaganda put out by anti-piracy organizations and many will be familiar with a similar situation a few years ago when the LokiTorrent tracker was closed and seemingly none of the users were tracked down. Fear, uncertainty and doubt – it’s all part of the anti-p2p strategy but it’s hugely doubtful that 180,000 users will be pursued, it’s just not cost effective and most are scattered around the globe.