I'm pretty sure this wasn't the case. Someone who is not me invited several people and didn't ever donate.
Glad to hear he's been cleared, though.
If you were a member of the site for a certain amount of time with a certain ratio and amount uploaded/downloaded, you were able to invite 2 friends a month and had access to the same features as donators.
That $300,000 thing hasn't really been substantiated AFAICT. It's directly from the mouth of the prosecutor. As someone who helps run a website where we ask users for money (but don't require it), $300,000 seems insane.
And I also seriously doubt that the bulk of that $300k, if it was really there, had anything to do with donations from OiNK. OiNK was pretty big but imo nowhere near big enough to yield that kind of bounty off of voluntary donations.
Importantly... does this mean that other people can now run free torrent sites like Oink with no legal risk? I'm not sure how British law works, in terms of setting precedents and the like...
I also think that record companies may now be seasoned enough to accept something like this; the thing is that the pitch needs to be made before they pay off INTERPOL to take you down.
Such a pitch should also come from one whose hands are clean, so to speak. If Ellis had made the pitch they probably would have said, "Good idea, but instead of paying you, you just give it to us for free and we'll put in a good word after your arrest."
Its not Mr. Ellis's prerogative to introduce a new business model around their content.
Absolutely. Until Salinger hits the metaphorical "publish" button, his books belong to him and no one else. But the minute he decides to share them with the world he enters into the realm of copyright law, which is (at least originally) designed to create a good enough bargain to incentivise him to publish, but which ultimately results in all these works entering the public domain.
There is no such thing as intellectual property - merely intellectual licensing agreements.
I sincerely hope so. It was the best torrent site I have ever had the pleasure of using.
For those are unfamiliar with these sites, they have pretty much every album imaginable. Including tiny indie bands and vinyl rips from the 50s. They have very strict sharing requirements (you have to contribute not just leech).
Not really. I joined one just to see what it was like. All I had to do was show up in an IRC channel and go through some 'testing process.' Apparently if I was referred by someone I could have forgone that process. My 'membership' recently lapsed because I never used it, but it wasn't hard to get in.
They did have some onerous rules though. Like getting kicked out if someone you referred breaks a rule. I think you even got kicked out if someone referred by a person that you referred got kicked out.
> They have very strict sharing requirements (you have to contribute not just leech).
The problem being that there are many torrents with only seeders connected to them. So it would be hard to keep your 'quota' without a concerted effort. It's not just 'leave your torrent client open when the downloading finishes.'
http://ts1.gazettelive.co.uk/local-news/middlesbrough-man-de...
http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2010/01/14/i...
And presumably the BBC article, since its the earliest report of the decision on the case that I can find.
