p2pnet news | Music:- The faces in North America and Europe responsible for dreaming up and maintaining Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s multi-million-dollar international mis- and disinformation campaign were out on the town, last night, celebrating the massive success of their OiNK project.

The hugely wealthy Big 4 labels claim they’re being “devastated”.

Every time someone uses the Net to share a piece of music with someone else, they lose a sale, they say.

It’s hard to imagine a more ridiculous assertion but it’s being lapped up and regurgitated whole by the mainstream media.

Yesterday, print and electronic press outlets on and offline around the world were out in force carrying the shock-horror story of a bust involving a number of separate British police elements, as well as Interpol.

But it was nothing more than a carefully organized, carefully staged media event wholly funded by British taxpayers and using the lamescream press to try the ‘case’ on TV and in the newspapers, finding an unnamed admin ‘guilty’ before any evidence has been presented and before anyone has been charged with anything.

And having achieved that, the Big 4’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry) is trying to milk it further by trying to frighten people who’ve used OiNK, a BitTorrent tracker.

And they get away with it with no questions asked by the ‘fair and balanced’ print and electronic media. Rather, they eagerly allow themselves to be Big 4 dupes.

National and international police

Now, “the admin of the raided OiNK.cd was released from custody,” says Holland’s Torrentfreak, going on:

The OiNK admin contacted TorrentFreak by email which confirms his release.

As for the OiNK users, it is highly doubtful that the IFPI or BPI will go after them all, or even one of them. They do know how to scare people with messages like: ‘A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site’s users’, but there is no evidence that they actually will.

More interesting perhaps, how did they gain access to the OiNK domain, and why are they allowed to spread this propaganda? They are not a law-enforcement agency.

NFOrce, the ISP of OiNK, said today in an interview that they were not aware of any illegal activities surrounding the site. They thought OiNK was hosting a streaming video site or a weblog. Yeah, right.

An even more interesting question is:

Why are purely commercial corporate concerns, whose only responsibility is to their shareholders, allowed to use national and international police and enforcement agencies paid for by local taxpayers on purely commercial business?

Media accounts say this ‘operation’ was underway for two years and even involved Interpol.

It’d be extremely interesting to see an accurate account, or even an estimate, of exactly how many officers, how many man-hours and how many million pounds and Euros were squandered in Holland and the UK on this farce on behalf of Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US).

I’ve asked the same question many times before with respect to other so-called ‘operations’, but it’s never raised, let alone answered, in the supposedly impartial mainstream media.

An affront to basic rule of law

The Dutch and British Pirate parties, meanwhile, are questioning both the legality and ethics of the bust.
They say in a press release >>>

Yet again, the record industry is distorting facts and perverting laws for their own benefits. The Pirate Parties of both the Netherlands, and the UK are both upset at this gratuitous waste of public money and limited police resources for the gratification of the recording industry and the fulfilment of their own petty war on progress.

The IFPI, whose stated mission is to promote (a euphemism for exaggerate) the value of recorded music, to the benefit of its members, and to ease the making of money for its members wherever and however possible. The methods of business are extremely shady in the least.

We are also questioning the integrity of the Cleveland Police force, who are letting representatives of the alleged victims participate in the investigation, and then, as soon as arrests are made, and before any criminal judgement is made in a court of law, allowing those same representatives to state that an activity was legal, without any due process of law. Both the British and Dutch traditions of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ have been ignored here.

These actions are disgusting, and an affront to basic rule of law. We see these acts as nothing more than a retaliatory action for the recent embarrassing revelations at the loss of the IFPI’s .com domain – a domain the IFPI has not owned for many months.

There are also grave inaccuracies and exaggerations in the press releases, which may lead again, to the loss of presumption of innocence, as is the right under British law.

Furthermore, we strongly believe that the IFPI and the BPI need to collectively look at the causes of these sites, as well as what makes them possible. Pre-release songs can come either from a disgruntled employer or semi-officially from the label itself, for marketing purposes. These disgruntled employees are presumably unhappy with their working conditions, and will continue to leak material until they are treated better. Promotional leaks are made with the consent of the label, and can clearly not be considered for actions like this at all.

Finally, we call on the IFPI and BPI, as we call on all other industry groups, to release the methodologies used to determine their claimed losses, so that their validity can be investigated. If their claims are valid, or even understating the point, then they will stand so much stronger, but the secrecy surrounding the determination of these figures strongly suggests that it would not even hold up to a cursory review.

Meanwhile, Big Music’s OiNK debacle rolls on and as I said yesterday, “British taxpayers will no doubt be delighted to see their hard earned money is being well spent – by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.”

UPDATE:

Check out, Questions on the OiNK debacle

Jon Newton – p2pnet

Slashdot it!

Also See:
carefully staged media event -OiNK bust on video, October 23, 2007
Torrentfreak – OiNK Admin Released From Custody, October 23, 2007

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 8:07 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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