OiNK and the Fear Factor
p2pnet news | P2P:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s anti-OiNK, anti-P2P, anti-file sharing, anti-customer campaign had zero impact on file sharing, but it’s had a positive effect on p2p innovation.
The (International Federation of Phartographic Industry) wasted two years of tax-payer money and scarce police resources to bring down Alan Ellis’ OiNK, website which allowed users to search for music.
The likelihood of the Big 4’s IFPI being able to turn it into a successful anti-P2P, anti-consumer, anti-file sharing court case ranks about as high as the IFPI’s credibility.
But it played well on TV and in the newspapers. And that`s principally what it was meant to do.
And speaking of innovation, meet Greasemonkey script OinkPlus.
It, “adds similar artists, tags, short bio and preview players to torrent details pages on some famous trackers and as such makes the discovery of new artists easy and convenient,” says the explanation and download site, going on:
“This has some nice new features, including enhanced artist browsing, a search bar, new external links and a lot of under the hood improvements like caching, less ressource consumption and heavily improved privacy.”
Creating a deterrent effect
With OiNK still in mind, Eric Garland runs online media measurement BigChampagne which, among other things, specialises in gathering data on P2P filesharing.
We asked him for his thoughts on OiNK >>>
p2pnet: One of the fears generated by the OiNK take-down is that users might wind up being investigated or sued or criminally prosecuted. So how serious is the threat, do you think?
Garland: As I mentioned in our conversation, the recording industry – at least the RIAA in this country – has over time changed its strategy in what appears at first to be a subtle way, but is actually quite substantive.
p2pnet: Substantive?
Garland: Rather than suing some number of hundreds or thousands of people each month (scattered all over the USA), now they focus instead on a small number of people (each) in a handful of markets/locales.
p2pnet: To create a deterrent effect?
Garland: Suing one person in Dallas, Texas, one person in Houston, Texas, one person in San Antonio, Texas…it doesn’t resonate much in any one of those communities. But when you sue ten people in a small town in Texas, it’s front page news! And of course that headline is even bigger if the paper is a college paper in a college town …
p2pnet: So this this is all about creating a major fear factor …
Garland: It’s not the litigation itself that benefits the RIAA’s cause so much as the local perception that there’s real risk involved in sharing files. Statistically, there’s no increase in individual risk. But what changes, in theory, is the news cycle and the local resonance of thestory.
So, on the one hand, it would make little sense to pursue OINK users – they’re a (relatively) small group, in the grand scheme of P2P, and there’s no chance you’re going to find any great number of them in Tyler, Texas.
However, there’s another RIAA interest that’s worth noting: they want knowing, intentional, eye-patch wearing pirates snared in the net. These folks make much better examples (again, mindful of the news cycle) than apparent innocents (grandmothers, small kids, the deceased) who seem to draw so much blowback.
The music industry, in theory, might want to pursue members of a seemingly elite, invitation only community (like OINK) only because the – always coming back to this word – perception might be that these people are more “serious” pirates and (sorry, Britney) not that innocent. Maybe just maybe the general public will say, those people had it coming.
That’s a very long answer to your short question.
Now, here’s a much better, shorter, answer.
No, I don’t think that an individual user of OINK has more cause for fear than any avid uploader. As always, investigation – much less prosecution – by the entertainment biz depends on a host of other conditions (remote browse enabled, using a net connection registered to you, sharing a title in which they happen to be interested at that precise moment, etc, etc, etc).
I think that what the OINK story really demonstrates (again, for the umpteenth time) is the remarkable persistence of these communities and the undeniable fact of these technologies and their permanence.
There’s no doubt that all of the users of OINK (and many more) will gather elsewhere and continue to swap very high quality album torrents.
The RIAA and global counterparts have no illusion of resolving “the piracy problem.” They make a point of saying so. They are war veterans, after all, pretty sober, clear-eyed and seasoned at this late date.
They’ll continue with the current strategy of litigation/legislation/education (as they say) so long as they believe a deterrent effort is in their industry’s interest, evolving the specific tactics employed to maximize the media coverage and perceived risk to the individual P2P user.
That’s the no-so-very-exciting day to day business of the entrenched war on piracy in late 2007.
Monday morning: yawn, stretch, grab your pick axe and get back to work!
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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November 12th, 2007 at 11:56 am
“But it played well on TV and in the newspapers. And thatâs principally what it was meant to do.”
Save for the fact that people people don’t believe the news on TV and news papers since they get their news from Internet.
What a pack of morons at the music Industry! Shall I say Dinosaurs?
November 12th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Ok Basically the same strategy. Trying to make exemple. Nobody is impress exept themselves anraging more potential customers and helping our cause as boycotter. The music parasites Vivendique/Universale, Sony/BMG, EMI and time warner are going, going. . . .