Thread: OiNK Founder Acquitted

OiNK Founder Acquitted

Today, Alan Ellis, the founder of OiNK is a free man. In the Teesside Crown Court, the jury of 12 unanimously acquitted the 26-year-old computer programmer of Conspiracy to Defraud. The story of OiNK, according to court proceedings, began as a server stored in Ellis’ bedroom while he was at university. The idea for OiNK came to him as he was trying to better himself. Ellis wanted a project to improve his programming skills and perhaps land a job.



By October of 2007, when OiNK was shut down by the authorities, the tracker had amassed nearly 200,000 users. Those users downloaded over 21 million files – according to an investigation by Dutch and British police. That same investigation found that Ellis had received over £200,000 in donations to OiNK. Ellis has always maintained that those funds went to cover the cost of the servers and bandwidth.

And that, my friends, is at the heart of this matter. Money.

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OiNK Founder Acquitted

Today, Alan Ellis, the founder of OiNK is a free man. In the Teesside Crown Court, the jury of 12 unanimously acquitted the 26-year-old computer programmer of Conspiracy to Defraud. The story of OiNK, according to court proceedings, began as a server stored in Ellis’ bedroom while he was at university. The idea for OiNK came to him as he was trying to better himself. Ellis wanted a project to improve his programming skills and perhaps land a job.

By October of 2007, when OiNK was shut down by the authorities, the tracker had amassed nearly 200,000 users. Those users downloaded over 21 million files – according to an investigation by Dutch and British police. That same investigation found that Ellis had received over £200,000 in donations to OiNK. Ellis has always maintained that those funds went to cover the cost of the servers and bandwidth.

And that, my friends, is at the heart of this matter. Money.

You see, the record companies have this strange idea that file sharing hurts their business. At first thought, you may tend to agree with them. However a 3-year Canadian study, presented in court by a University of London professor, showed that file sharers actually buy more music than non-file sharers. The “try before you buy” mentality leads to more sales as they buy more music by artists they’ve sampled. In all actuality, the music industry is doing better than ever.

The prosecution tried to convince the jury that Ellis’ sole purpose in creating and running OiNK was to make money by profiting from copyright infringement. It painted OiNK’s users as criminals. File sharing hurts the record industry, they said. But the only case they could muster against the Pink Palace was a charge that Ellis had knowingly defrauded the record industry.

Ellis said that he viewed OiNK more like Google or a telephone book. Links to the information were provided, but no actual information was hosted at the tracker. If OiNK’s users were downloading material that they were not entitled to, that’s their business, not Ellis’. But he was not deaf to the voice of “authority” either. He responded in good faith whenever he received a takedown notice, even heeding the word of the so-called Web Sheriff.

Finally, at the end of a two year trial, the jury heard closing arguments. Venomous rhetoric from both sides was spewed at the jury. The prosecution: striving to paint Ellis as a greedy, dishonest man. The defense: passionately describing an innovator whose talent was being crushed by the media. In the end, the jury acquitted Ellis of the charge. The prosecution failed to convince the members that Ellis knowingly and willfully sought to defraud the record industry.

The repercussions and ramifications from this trial may be massive. Not only does it set precedence in the UK court system, but it is sure to be mentioned in all further file sharing cases around the world. A court has finally been convinced of the idea that torrent tracking is not the same as hosting files. This will not be taken lightly.


Sources: ars technica, (The Daily) Mail Online, OS News, TorrentFreak

Interesting article AfterMidnight, written and explained beautifully like always. I found this article interesting in that filesharers buy more than non-filesharers and that we give industries more money. That's just fascinating as i never thought of it that way. I congratulate the jury on seeing this and i think this is a big revelation for the torrent world. This i think will help in future cases for private/public tracker owners and such.

Also i never knew that OINK had that many members and that's a heck of a lot o' donations, unfortunately i never got to see or join that tracker as it must have been exceptional.

I'm excited to see what the future holds now that we have some precedence in matters like this. Granted it isn't in the US, but the UK is a victory as well.

Wow, after all this time, it is SO nice to see. I was a member at Oink for over a year, woke up one day and went to check for some new music, and there was a message that read "This sites administrator has been arrested for Conspiracy to Defraud, an investigation is being made into the sites users." Pretty much the worst message you can get when you go to login to your favorite tracker. Oink was my first serious private tracker, after it closed down I wandered aimlessly for equal music goodness while other music trackers struggled to ramp up to accept Oink's massive user base. There wasn't another place like it and sadly there will never be again, though the spirit of it's users lives on to tell the story and keep it's memory.

Long live the pink palace, and congrats to Alan Ellis for clearing his name.

Originally Posted by chief o'brien

Wow, after all this time, it is SO nice to see. I was a member at Oink for over a year, woke up one day and went to check for some new music, and there was a message that read "This sites administrator has been arrested for Conspiracy to Defraud, an investigation is being made into the sites users." Pretty much the worst message you can get when you go to login to your favorite tracker. Oink was my first serious private tracker, after it closed down I wandered aimlessly for equal music goodness while other music trackers struggled to ramp up to accept Oink's massive user base. There wasn't another place like it and sadly there will never be again, though the spirit of it's users lives on to tell the story and keep it's memory.

Long live the pink palace, and congrats to Alan Ellis for clearing his name.

I wonder what chance there is of OiNK returning now, What.CD and Waffles are horribly inadequate when it comes to music releases.

Originally Posted by Jschro14

I wonder what chance there is of OiNK returning now, What.CD and Waffles are horribly inadequate when it comes to music releases.

I highly doubt that OiNK would ever return. The servers were seized over two years ago, and I'm sure Mr. Ellis will have a legal battle over their return. Not to mention that this is probably an episode he'd like to leave in his past. Stranger things have happened, but I doubt OiNK will return.

Originally Posted by AfterMidnight

I highly doubt that OiNK would ever return. The servers were seized over two years ago, and I'm sure Mr. Ellis will have a legal battle over their return. Not to mention that this is probably an episode he'd like to leave in his past. Stranger things have happened, but I doubt OiNK will return.

Yeh I have to agree with AM, Oink will never return, it's almost impossible.

this is good news but dont think oink would be back. i also like the way the news have been narrated