Andre Yoskowitz
31 May 2008 18:47
According to TorrentFreak, British police have arrested a former user of the private torrent tracker OiNK for uploading and seeding a single album. There was word that police are currently questioning others and more arrests seem likely.
The popular tracker was shutdown in late 2007, and the British authorities made the claim that they would be investigating, not anti-piracy agencies such as the RIAA, MPAA, or BREIN. Until today though, no one has been charged with anything, that even includes OiNK founder and admin Alan Ellis.
The man arrested, who was from the Cheshire area, was questioned and later released on police bail. He has no prior convictions or arrests and is in trouble for uploading a single album early last year.
The bigger questions however, are why the arrest happened now, for such a trivial user, and whether the charges will stick. There was no commercial gain for the user, and his only crime may be that the album was a pre-release, meaning it hit the Internet days or weeks before the actual street date.
We will keep you updated.