Proves that British police are having a tough finding what charges to file in a case that the Crown Prosecution Service calls a “highly-complex” case.
OiNK, the long shuttered music-oriented BitTorrent tracker site, made the headlines once again with news today that bodes well for cases against both the site’s former Admin, Alan Ellis, as well as the handful of “pre-releasers” who uploaded albums to the site well ahead of their official release date.
This makes the 4th time that bail has been extended for Ellis. The initial deadline for them to finish gathering evidence and to decide whether or not to bring charges was December 21st of LAST YEAR.
The case is centers around two charges: conspiracy to defraud and infringement of copyright.
The first charge allegedly pertains to the site’s donations mechanism in which users contributed to the site to pay for server costs, hosting fees, etc.. UK authorities insist that the site was a money making scheme that was “extremely lucrative.”
“Members paid donations via debit or credit cards, ensuring their continued access to the site,” reads a press release that followed Operation Ark Royal which targeted the site. “The payments were received electronically into the web site company accounts.”
“This is big business, with hundreds of thousands of pounds being made.”
The second charge concerns the site itself, but as Ellis has pointed out, OiNK merely pointed users to content much like other indexing sites like Google, Yahoo and others. Holding him accountable for what the site’s links pointed to would mean a drastic shift in both copyright laws as well as the way Internet sites are expected to behave.
“If this goes to court it is going to set a huge precedent.” Ellis told The Telegraph. a while back. “It will change the internet as we know it.”
It’s been more than 7 months now since charges were to have been formally filed by authorities and this 4th delay surely means they’re having a tough time proving either of the charges.
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service readily admits that it’s a “highly-complex” case.
It’s also being reported that charges have been dropped against 2 of the 6 people accused of being “Pre-releasers,” uploading an album to the site before the official release date.
It’s not often that the BitTorrent community gets good news so this is certainly a day to rejoice.
