UK Police begin arresting BitTorrent users.
In keeping with the standard practice of meeting their quota’s in the easiest ways possible (Motoring tickets, arresting people for having miniscule amounts of weed, etc) and generally, not actually being of any use whatsoever, should you happen to be stabbed, robbed or bum raped. Police have confirmed that they have arrested six UK residents in connection with posting pre-release albums on the now defunct, BitTorrent associated, OINK website.
Three of the arrests were made on Friday May 23rd, the others on Wednesday 28th May.
A spokeswoman for Cleveland police was unable to provide details of which specific criminal law or laws the six are under suspicion of breaking.
This is disconcerting, for the fact that this is the direct result of further investigation of the Oink case from last October. Alan Ellis, a 24 year old IT worker from Middlesbrough was raided by Police in a joint effort with the Dutch authorities. Whom apparently don’t approve of this sort of thing.
On Friday 30th May, the file sharing site Torrentfreak posted more details of the arrests. It states that those arrested did not know Alan Ellis and that they have been ordered to part with all necessary information in relation to the site, including passwords.
“Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act can be used by police to force suspects to disclose encryption keys and passwords. Failure to comply with with a section 49 order carries a prison sentence of up to five years.”
At the time of the shutdown, investigators took over the OiNK.cd domain, posting a warning to the site’s users. It said: “A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site’s users.” Many BitTorrent users had believed further arrests were unlikely. They were, however, wrong.
Oink was a very highly praised site, featuring excellent quality downloads, an extensive back catalogue and a horde of pre release material. These factors which made it so appealing to so many users, unfortunately made it the primary target for record industry’s, anti-piracy investigators.
Whilst a Cleveland (UK) Police spokesperson could not provide details as to which specific laws the arrested persons are accused of breaching. It is also unclear if they are being targeted for releasing material from specific major labels.
The only comment issued on the arrests so far has been the usual fare from the BPI;
“The BPI and IFPI worked with the police in order to close down the OiNK tracker site last October. The illegal online distribution of music, particularly pre-release, is hugely damaging, and as OiNK was the biggest source for pre-releases at the time we moved to shut it down. We provided the information to assist this investigation, but this is now a police matter and we are unable to comment further at this stage.”
There is an unsettling element to this story. It would appear that information from “Invite Only” file sharing sites is being passed around and that now, the authorities are going to take pot shots at users who trade primarily in major label releases. How dare you take money away from those poor major labels. You complete and utter bastard you.
Yarrrrgggghhhhhh. I like pirates.
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