A bad week for file sharers
by Shawn Ashley
When most people hear oink they think of a pig.
But for about 180,000 people OiNK had a completely different meaning.
OiNK was one of the world’s largest illegal music file sharing websites.
What made it different from many other file-sharing sites was that it had strict rules about what kind of content could be uploaded.
The site would only take the most high quality files. Albums uploaded had to be complete and had to have all the album information. If you were to upload an incomplete album, or one that was missing the track listing, it would be enough to get you banned from the site.
In addition to their strict attitude about what kind of content could be uploaded, the site administrators also forced all of the site’s users to maintain a ratio of what could be downloaded versus how much was uploaded. So if a person was to download files (or as they call it, if they were a “leecher”) only, they would get kicked off the site. You had to upload as much as you downloaded.
The site had a reputation for high quality album releases and leaks, and it had reached an almost legendary status.
But yesterday it was shut down after police seized it’s web server, located in Amsterdam. The owner of the site, whose name was not released, was also arrested from his home in Britain.
The news of the closing of OiNK comes just after news that another popular online file-sharing site was closed. www.tv-links.co.u khad hosted many television shows and movies and made them completely free to download. It’s owner was arrested and the site was closed just earlier this week.
There’s more bad news for file-sharers as the internet service provider Comcast has announced that they are going to be implementing a filter which will prevent anyone from accessing files through many forms of peer to peer transfer. This would prevent those users from using file sharing-networks such as BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella.
File-sharers have taken a heavy beating this week.
File-sharers need not worry too much though, after all they still have ThePirateBay.org