The administrator of the torrent tracker OiNK acquitted after two years of litigation

For reference: OiNK.cd was the most famous closed music torrent tracker, which was often distributed not yet available for sale albums of musicians. It was possible to get there only by invitation, but it was much more difficult to get them than on Habré;) The closure of OiNK became a problem for many music critics around the world, many of whom received fresh recordings precisely because of this tracker. A few hours ago, the administrator and creator of OiNK acquitted the court. I will not comment on this decision, but I will leave this right to you. However, in seriousness this case is not inferior to the case of The Pirate Bay.

A UK court acquitted the administrator of the torrent tracker OiNK on the only charge against him: complicity in fraud against copyright holders. Despite attempts by music industry figures to present him as a cunning liar who earned money from other people's hard work, last Friday, by secret ballot by a jury board of Teesside Crown, twenty-six-year-old Alan Ellis was found innocent.

OiNK's trekker drama began in October 2007, when the police confiscated the servers on which he worked and arrested Ellis. This was preceded by a two-year investigation of the activity of the trekker by two international organizations representing the interests of the right holders (IFPI and BPI). At the time of the arrest, the Cleveland police said that the “hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling” received by the trekker were weighed in various bank accounts, and the IFPI claimed that over 180,000 “hardcore” users distributed through closed OiNK tracker popular demos and mixes released before the legal release.

Shortly after Ellis was arrested, the police investigated the actions of some of the OiNK users , but she was unable to find evidence of a connection between them and the resource manager. Over time, Ellis was released on bail, but the case itself lasted more than two years. The prosecution called OiNK a “cash cow” and claimed that Ellis gained about 300,000 pounds, and the trekker users performed about 21 million illegal downloads.
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Ellis, of course, claimed that he only provided a service, akin to Google: OiNK only encouraged users to find each other what they were looking for. When Birgitte Andersenok, a professor at the University of London, provided evidence that file sharing actually led to an increase in music sales, the accusation in the face of the music industry called her calculations "rubbish" and stated that Ellis said "continuous, tricky, deliberate" lies.

Ellis's lawyer noted that he was in constant contact with the copyright holders before OiNK was closed in 2007, but neither the IFPI nor anyone else had ever asked him to stop working on the trekker. Moreover, before IFPI contributed to the closure of the site, the musicians used it to promote their music. “If anyone acts unfairly, it’s them,” said lawyer Alex Stein.

Apparently, last Friday, after listening to the final arguments of the prosecution and defense, the jury agreed with the lawyer, voting by secret ballot in favor of Ellis. This process was the first of its kind in the UK and the decision of the jury will be a serious problem for some music industry figures who have been trying to strangle peering networks for a long time. IFPI did not comment on the court’s decision, and a BPI spokesman told The Register that the organization was not satisfied with the outcome of the process. “This is a disappointing verdict that stands out from other decisions taken on similar cases all over the world, such as The Pirate Bay case,” he said. “This shows that artists and record companies need better protection.”