British Police Arrest Six OiNK Members
The UK’s Cleveland Police Department has confirmed the arrest of six OiNK members, who are charged with uploading of pre-release music. Three of the arrests were made on Friday 23rd May and three more on Wednesday 28th May. The arrested individuals are five men aged between 19 and 33, and a 28-year-old woman.
The individuals were charged with “Conspiracy to Defraud the Music Industry,” hauled off for questioning and required to provide DNA samples and fingerprints.
The BPI issued this statement:
The BPI and IFPI worked with the police in order to close down the OiNK tracker site last October. The illegal online distribution of music, particularly pre-release, is hugely damaging, and as OiNK was the biggest source for pre-releases at the time we moved to shut it down. We provided the information to assist this investigation, but this is now a police matter and we are unable to comment further at this stage.
Pre-releases were just one facet of the invite-only BitTorrent tracker, a large online music repository originally located at oink.cd. OiNK was shuttered in late October, part of a effort that involving the BPI, IFPI, and enforcement authorities. That included the arrest of founder Alan Ellis, though charges have not yet been issued.
