OiNK owner had $300,000: prosecutor
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- OiNK creator Alan Ellis, 26, had some £190,000 (around $300,000 in his Paypal account) when he was arrested after a police raid on his house in 2007, it was revealed at his trial.
Ellis, “pinched in Middlesborough, and servers in Holland were seized by Dutch police in raids code-named ‘Operation Ark Royal’,” says The Register, denied he was guilty of conspiracy to defraud.
“The IT worker has always insisted that he offered no more than an indexing service, like Google, and was not responsible for the content members were making available to each other, says the story, going on:
“Cleveland police alleged at the time he was making hundreds of thousands of pounds from the site.”
Oink was set up in May 2004 and hosted in Norway, “but later moved to Amsterdam,” says the BBC.
“Following an investigation in October 2007, which led to the site being closed down, police simultaneously raided premises close to Schiphol Airport and Mr Ellis’s Middlesbrough home,” says the story, continuing:
“The prosecution said that when interviewed by police, Mr Ellis refused to answer questions about money, and said it was ‘out of my hands’ what the site’s members did.”
Police “found donations from around the world in several of Ellis’s Paypal accounts,” it adds.
Stay tuned.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
The Register – Prosecutors claim BitTorrent admin had $300K, January 7, 2010
trial – OiNK trial farce begins, January 6, 2010
BBC – Oink music sharing website was ‘large-scale rip-off’, January 7, 2010
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The IT worker has always insisted that he offered no more than an indexing service, like Google, and was not responsible for the content members were making available to each other.
Cleveland police alleged at the time he was making hundreds of thousands of pounds from the site.
January 8th, 2010 at 2:36 am
“Cleveland police alleged at the time he was making hundreds of thousands of pounds from the site.”
Since when do Cleveland police speak of currency in British terms? Perhaps it was just from the source, but that quote just isn’t right. Anybody in Cleveland speaking of “pounds” is referring to weight, not currency. He must be obese!
January 8th, 2010 at 3:27 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland,_England
January 8th, 2010 at 3:53 am
Ahhh… learn something new every day.
January 8th, 2010 at 7:50 am
The core premise here is that he has in fact committed no offence under common law, whilst the cries of the fat cats will prove to be all their case actually consists of I expect this chap to be found not guilty and sue for substantial damages, that is the only language the monopolist cartels understand.
To win his case he only needs to show he implemented a take down policy and that those claiming to represent the music industry are not the actual rights holders in many cases and are thus trying to gain revenue by fraudulent means.