Invitation-only music tracker OiNK.cd has been shut down, with its 24-year-old administrator arrested in Britain in connection with the investigation.
OiNK has been a thorn in the side of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for a couple of years. IFPI claimed in a BBC report the OiNK.cd site leaked 60 major albums before their release in 2007.
Though OiNK operated as a members-only torrent tracker, once music made it to the site’s members, it quickly flowed to other outlets online. That gained the site a reputation as a major source of new music.
Today, visitors to the site are greeted by this message: “A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site’s users.” British and Dutch authorities have been involved in the investigation, as has Interpol.
“OiNK hosted hundreds and thousands of torrents with over a million peers which makes it more popular than most public trackers,” said torrent news blog TorrentFreak.
While the unnamed administrator and his father have been arrested in Britain, servers in Amsterdam hosting OiNK.cd were also shut down. The administrator has not been identified, but a whois lookup for the domain lists the name ‘Alan’ as the registrant, with a Middlebrough address.
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