In UK, Oink Admin Cleared of Fraud 156
krou writes "The BBC is reporting that Alan Ellis, who ran music file sharing site Oink from his flat in the UK, has been found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud. Between 2004 and 2007, the site 'facilitated the download of 21 million music files' by allowing its some 200,000 'members to find other people on the web who were prepared to share files.' Ellis was making £18,000 a month ($34,600) from donations from users, and claimed that he had no intention of defrauding copyright holders, and said 'All I do is really like Google, to really provide a connection between people. None of the music is on my website.'" Reader Andorin recommends Torrentfreak's coverage, which includes summaries of the closing arguments.
Re:Spin (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:money (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends. Does the UK have civil asset forfeiture? Because in the US, that money would be found guilty and no one would ever see it again.
That's right, money can be guilty in the US if it associates with other money to a sum of $10,000 or more (or less, really, if the authorities really want it). Land of the free, my ass.
Re:Spin (Score:4, Insightful)
The Authors Guild probably would sue libraries if they didn't already have hundreds of years of history behind them. The only reason online sharing of books is illegal is because it's a new concept. The Boston Public Library is allowed to exist, but bostonlibrary.com is not.
Re:Spin (Score:3, Insightful)
Profit?
That's an awfully big assumption. Sure he collected $34,000 from donations but if his online billing/expenses were $40,000 then he's not really getting rich, is he?
Good news (Score:1, Insightful)
Nice to hear a sensible decision on this matter in UK courts, not completely bought by money/power of certain big businesses yet unlike elsewhere.
Re:Spin (Score:3, Insightful)
A local lending library does not have and never has had the ability to reproduce a single book for as many people as want it at no significant cost to themselves.
Hence libraries have never had the capacity to threaten the actual profitability of a book that much. See - there's a difference for you.
Re:Implications for torrent sites? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I think it's very much the opposite really. Regardless the Labour Party, the ruling junta of the UK, are very committed to the music industry. Many of their backers are from the music industry (and they need every penny right now, they are about to fight an election they can't win, and are near bankrupt). The UK has explored many different ways of dealing with filesharing, and is pretty much committed to a zero tolerance stance.
Fortunately the UK judges may be more wise in this instance that the braindead, thieving cretins who rule the UK.
In Sweden, what ever the laws are, the main issue seemed to be that the judge trying the Pirate Bay was corrupt, and in the pay of a Music Industry pressure group.
However, the reason why that judge may have been selected, the core issue with the Pirate Bay, was that they were, quite literally, asking for it. They taunted and mocked the music industry and the Swedish Justice system. It was only a question of time before someone was going to get them for something. As entertaining as they were, their approach to the situation was astonishingly naive, and guaranteed to get them jail time.
Re:Spin (Score:2, Insightful)
Slight difference: public libraries buy the books they loan out. This particular sleazebag didn't buy anything in order to "earn" £18,000 a month. He deserved a hefty fine and at least a suspended sentence.
Well. No one can point to a law that he broke soooo...
He did not do anything to Earn a fine. Unless you are just pissed that a guy found out how to make shitloads of cash for very little effort. In fact from looking at your post it would seem that is is the fact that he made a lot of money for no effort that pissed you off. What a sad life you must live.
Re:Strange route to take... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm guessing that what he did is utterly legal according to UK law and that the pathetic 'conspiracy to defraud' charge was the only thing they could possibly have a chance at a conviction with. Don't worry I'm sure the new 'digital economy' bill will sort this 'loop hole' out.
Re:Spin (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like trying to make water not wet. Bits are easily copied. That's a plain and simple fact. Trying to pretend otherwise is stupid. What is stupid about the business is that they are trying to treat those bits as if they were scarce, just like they do with paper books. The problem is that physical goods ARE scarce. Sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "people are taking all my BITS!" is just pissing into the wind. Build a windmill instead of complaining about how all your paper hats are blowing away.
Re:Spin (Score:5, Insightful)
If a poor kid borrows books from a library those are not lost sales--the kid didn't have money for the books anyway. No sales are lost.
And note that this was one of the primary reasons that public libraries were established. The intent was to bring books to "the masses" who mostly had no access to any sort of literature. The publishers weren't happy with the idea at the time, though they eventually learned to live with it. In the long run, a literate population that liked to read was in the publishers' long-term interest.
It's not hard to see the same anti-educational view in the objections to internet sharing. There's a strong sense that what publishers want is an end to my access to anything that I haven't first paid for. Of course, this means that I'd have no way of judging beforehand whether I want to read (or view or listen to) something; I'd just have to buy it, and in the 99% case that I don't actually like it, I can discard it. They're not just against my getting information on authors, musicians, etc. from a public library. They want an end to all sharing among friends or acquaintances, so we'd have no way of knowing if we like something without first paying for it.
Maybe we need to be bringing up the public libraries more in the growing debates over "sharing" online. It would benefit us all (and probably the producers, too), if there were an open and legal online equivalent to public libraries. Also, we should try to make it clear that introducing friends to things we like by sharing is still as legal as it was a few decades ago. Otherwise we'll lose a lot of what the supporters of public libraries and the "public domain" fought to establish in past centuries.
We don't really want to go back to the day when most of the public was intentionally kept illiterate and ignorant of most "culture". And we don't want to go forward to a system in which we can never discover whether we like something unless we've first paid for it. This is what the publishers and recording companies are pushing for.