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Oink uploaders sentenced to community service
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 28 January 2009
Remember OiNK, the UK-based BitTorrent tracker which offered links to all sorts of illegal content and which was closed down by the authorities in October 2007?
Well, four of the most prominent uploaders of illegal content to the service have been sentenced for the various copyright infringement crimes they committed. The four uploaders in question pleaded guilty last December to making music available via the OiNK community without the permission of the content owners.
Sentenced at Teesside Crown Court, uploader one Steven Diprose got 180 hours community service and was ordered to pay £378 court costs. Uploader two Michael Myers was ordered to pay a £500 fine. Uploader three got 100 hours community service and £378 costs. Uploader four James Garner got 50 hours community service and £378 costs.
There seems to be mixed opinions to the sentences among the BitTorrent community. Some reckon the judge too readily accepted the record industry’s case for the four uploader’s actions causing them commercial damage.
Others, though, reckon the OiNK boys all got off quite lightly, and that the sentences won’t provide that big a deterrent to those who continue to illegally share music via Torrent trackers and other web services. That said, sources say that only strong legal representation and a plethora of good references from respectable citizens helped the defendents avoid custodial sentences, which were considered by the court.
TorrentFreak quote a source close to one of the convicted infringers thus: “[The Judge] swallowed the prosecution line completely that initial seeders were causing major damage to the copyright holders, and particularly uploaders who uploaded before the official release date. The fact that all the early uploads were only one or two days early and that three out four of the uploaders bought their CDs online did not sway him. All the retailers, quite naturally, denied this”.
The cases against a fifth uploader to the OiNK community, plus the guy behind the service, Alan Ellis, are ongoing and will return to court in March.
