Six More OiNK Arrests Made

• By The WHIR, June 02, 2008

•   Digg
    Delicious
    Reddit
    Newsvine
    Stumbleupon
    Twitter

  (close)

  From:

  To:

  (close)
  Share | Send | Print | Comments (0)

By Justin Lee, theWHIR.com

June 2, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Cleveland authorities have arrested six people for allegedly sharing music files through the former BitTorrent tracker OiNK.cd, according to reports on filesharing blog Torrentfreak.

A statement released by the police reveal that five men between the ages of 19 and 33, and a 28-year-old woman were held in custody "in relation to uploading pre-release music."

Three people were arrested on May 23, while the other three were arrested on May 28. All six suspects have been bailed without charge, pending further inquiries.

A Cleveland police spokesperson could not provide information as to which specific criminal law or laws the six individuals are under suspicion of breaking.

Last October, British and Dutch police shut down the invitation-only OiNK website for distributing illegally downloaded music before their official street date. The site focused on high quality files and featured trackers for pre-release material, which eventually drew attention from record industry anti-piracy investigators.

The site's administrator, Alan Ellis, was also arrested in October, and Dutch police seized the website's servers which were later returned completely erased.

Ellis is currently on police bail under suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and infringement of copyright law. His bail has been repeatedly extended, with the next deadline scheduled for July 1.

Torrentfreak cited sources today saying that most of the arrested individuals did not personally know Ellis, and that they had been asked by police to provide information of their OiNK.cd accounts, including passwords.

Police can use the Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to force suspects to provide encryption keys and passwords, and failutre to comply with this order can result in up to five years of prison time.

When the website was shut down, investigators took over the OiNK.cd domain and posted a disclaimer to the site's users that said: "A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site's users." 

Despite the warning, many BitTorrent users believed that any further arrests were unlikely. Control of the domain has since been returned to its owner.

Tags:  Strato 

• Print | Comments (0)

• (0) Comments
• View Post