oink creator cleared of charge

oink creator cleared of charge

  Quote

(UKPA) – 2 hours ago

 

A man accused of running one of the world's largest music sharing websites has been acquitted of conspiracy to defraud.

 

Alan Ellis, 26, was accused of making hundreds of thousands of pounds from the Oink website, which he ran from his own bedroom.

 

However, a jury at Teesside Crown Court unanimously cleared the software engineer of the single charge.

 

Mr Ellis, of Grange Road, Middlesbrough, smiled as the jury foreman returned the not guilty verdict. He declined to speak as he left the court.

 

He had told the jury that he set up Oink in his bedroom to brush up on his computing skills while a student at Teesside University.

 

When police raided his terraced home in October 2007, they found almost 300,000 dollars in his accounts and the site had 200,000 members, who had downloaded 21 million files.

 

Mr Ellis said the money was used to pay for the server's rental and any "surplus" was intended to eventually buy a server.

 

He added that the website was developed from a free template, which had a Torrent file-sharing facility included in it. It allowed members to find other people on the web who were prepared to share files - allowing users to get hold of music for free.

 

Mr Ellis, who was born in Leeds and grew up in south Manchester, studying A-levels in Cheadle, said there was no intention to defraud copyright holders. He had a full-time job as a software engineer and said administering the site was just a hobby.

 

The prosecution said he told police officers: "All I do is really like Google, to really provide a connection between people. None of the music is on my website."

 

Copyright © 2010 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

never heard of Oink

I thought this was going to be a pig on trial

good news!

lol, Cheadle is about 10 minutes from my house.

Nice one

fuck, I miss oink

  On 1/15/2010 at 8:03 PM, LOL Alzado said:

fuck, I miss oink

waffles is exactly the same thing tho. if not better

and what is even betterer

  On 1/15/2010 at 7:50 PM, Jimbob said:

lol, Cheadle is about 10 minutes from my house.

 

Nice one

my ex girlfriend went to that college

Derby maaaate

What.cd is the way

  On 1/15/2010 at 10:10 PM, mrcopyandpaste said:

What.cd is the way

  On 1/15/2010 at 8:55 PM, messiaen said:

waffles is exactly the same thing tho. if not better

You see, this is exactly the problem post Oink. Back in the old days good old Oink would have everything, now you have the two - there's stuff on one and not the other, then you have to balance out your ratios between the two - which one do you upload too, which one has the better number of seeders. Bah, it's a download/upload minefield - so I cancelled both accounts, too much pressure !!

Oink was great. Never had 133t enough skillz to get on the others since