Pigs refuse to OiNK!

Thousands mourn on websites such as the Oink Memorial Blog over the recent death of the best service for sharing pristine independent (and other) music. The quality, variety, and speed of files once shared over OiNK was galaxies beyond any other service that I have experienced and the forums held a close knit community more knowledgeable about music than that of any other digital community that I have witnessed.

According to Britain’s Telegraph.co.uk, the website was shut down in a raid by British and Dutch police. Quite a bit of false information regarding the site has been stated by police reports. For instance, Police claimed that OiNK was targeted because it was a site where users paid to download illegal music from their servers; in actuality, OiNK was a free torrent tracker. There was no cost at all. The only requirements for membership were that you were invited by a friend, log in every once in a while, and keep a good share radio by uploading a reasonable amount of files in comparison to the amount of files you are downloading. They even had a strictly enforced policy against selling membership invites. The only exchange of money was an option of donating to help them pay for the costs of running the server. Also, police said that they hosted illegal music on their site. In reality, they were hosting a forum for sharing torrent files.

Somehow the IFPI, which seems to be the international version of the RIAA, managed to hijack the oink.cd domain and replace it with a threatening message claiming “a criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site's users.” Due to the nature of private trackers, it should prove simple find the identities of the 180,000 OiNK users.

I still fail to see the motivation behind killing off individual file-share communities when new ones will always crop up in their place. Major label resistance to the evolution of their market is confounding. File-sharing should be seen as an incredible and free means of marketing their products. Independent record labels often realize this and leak records online before their release in order to generate hype for their artists. And it works.

Like many younger people who have grown up with computers, I don’t watch TV or listen to the radio. This leads me to believe record sales are dropping because labels are relying on antiquated and failing venues for promotion, while alienating their potential customers by shutting down sites that young people use to find new music. I attend countless concerts a year, donate to bands, and buy records. Yet, I rarely buy an album without downloading it first for free. With more than 30,000 large scale album releases per year, I simply cannot afford to purchase them all. So, if it comes down to me buying only forty albums a year, then why wouldn’t I check all the music that sounds intriguing and pay for the albums I really like? I appreciate this ability to preview albums enough to say that I doubt I will ever feel comfortable buying an album from a member of the RIAA or IFPI again. Maybe the won a little bit; I won’t download their albums illegally, but it is only because I have no interest in buying them or supporting their artists.

That said, go buy Jens Lekman’s albums. They are fantastic. http://www.jenslekman.com/discography.htm He has a sweet little message about filesharing on the bottom of his page.