Anyone who partakes in file sharing music files on P2P services be aware of what's recently been happening out in the world of illegal music sharing.
If you have been following the story on Friday and some additional information on Sunday via Torrent Freak you maybe interested to know and be aware that in the UK a number (6) of ex-OiNK users have been arrested under allegedly involved in the pre-release uploading of music albums, and accusing them of ‘Conspiracy to Defraud the Music Industry’.
This is a worrying trend for users since the launch of "Operation Ark Royal" where police are working with the BPI & IFPI- they already arrested a 27 year old man last October and the news on Friday that police had made further arrests is the beginning of a trend where prolific sharers of pre-release content are now being targeted.
However unlike eBay years ago - where pre-release CDs were being sold no criminal charges were ever brought against these people - probably because most of these were being sold by either people working within the music business or retailers and radio stations that would receive advanced copies to play before the release date.
So what you have to look at is - if these users are sharing pre-release content - where are they getting their original files from in the first instance??
This has been an issue for many years - and all the digital media age has done has made the sharing of these files more prolific and can cross the world in an instance. I remember the Metallica incident where I Disappear appeared on the old Napster and the band pulled the names of all the users from Napster and threatened to sue every one of them. The case never came to anything - but as mentioned above if this was an early version of the track (which it was) you would have to ask some questions:
- Who had access to the track in the first place
- If sample copies were sent - especially as it was not a final version of the track - this must have been an exclusive group of people
- Where was the originating file sent from
- Would this / did this harm the sale of the track itself (Yes after Metallica took the stance of pursuing their own fans) but generally NO - increases the awareness of the track
So ask those exact same questions of the people arrested on Friday and you may find that the actual leak of pre-release material came from a source closer to the home of the industry itself an not in fact from the file sharers.
I'm not condoning the actions of the file sharers but the fact that they are being arrested on the pretence of "pre-release" uploading you must assess where the source of the pre-release comes from.
So is this the purpose of these arrests?
I don't think so - the people questioned were quizzed further around OiNK, their understanding of the purpose of the site and what they did as a user there - as well as if the people arrested personally knew OiNK's creator, Alan Ellis - they didn’t.
Alan Ellis is to answer his bail on 1st July 2008 - the same time that the people arrested on Friday must return to their local police stations, one person who was not arrested but was a user of OiNK was Trent Reznor, who loved using OiNK - so there maybe more to this story that meets the eye!