Yesterday, it was fairly big news that file-sharing site OiNK (currently hijacked courtesy of the BPI) had been shut down through an operating involving Cleveland Police, the Dutch Police and Interpol… the site’s administrator had been arrested (and now released without charge, according the Guardian).
It’s interesting how nearly all of the newspapers covering this event are very much against (illegal) file-sharing because I suspect that the journalists, like lots of the population, file share. I also find it curious how our government are so much in objection to file-sharing suggesting when most of their voters are in favour of it. They also suggest more laws should be introduced to protest intellectual property and that they would encourage ISPs to censor/filter preventing file-sharing (this would damage Linux too as many distros are downloaded through P2P, legally!). It is worth noting that our government “hounding 14-year-olds who shared music”. Still, I don’t like the idea of my ISP actively filtering my Internet… this isn’t China!
OiNK seems to have been portrayed unfairly in the media. Lots of people suggested they were a subscription service: we now know this is untrue… it was merely an invitation-only site/tracker which accepted donations and required a certain share ratio (much like Demonoid).
Everyone downloads music… I bet even the constables arresting OiNK’s administrator do! The record industry can’t just keep shutting down sites and sueing users as no matter what people will think of a way around it (any OiNK member will be tech-literate enough to shift to another tracker easily enough!) and suggestions of filtering our internet - at least for file-sharing - is a risk to our freedom of speech and to open-source.
I also question the illegality of OiNK… is linking to a file which is pirated against law? They aren’t hosting the file… merely a list of places where the file can be found.
Just because you CAN steal something dosn’t make it right.
Just because a lot of people are breaking a law dosn’t make it right.
Yours is a pig headed and immature approach to the subject.
Sure the music industry has to evolve to keep up with the times.
Yet i don’t think that people deserve other peoples hard work for free?
Whatever you do for a job (if you even work) would you be happy to do it for free? just because people could get away with not paying you?
Of course not.
Music, Film, Software does not grow on trees.
It is the livelyhood of a hell of a lot of people.
Now stop being a thief and pay these people for the hard work they put in.
Are you accusing me of breaking copyright law? I didn’t condone it nor did I say I did it at any point in this article.