London – A U.K. court jury has voted
unanimously to acquit the administrator of music file-sharing network OiNK on
charges of "conspiracy to defraud" the recording industry, according
to published reports. U.K.
authorities raided the operation two years ago and made several arrests,
including 26-year-old computer engineer Alan Ellis.
At trial, it was alleged
that Ellis was taking in $18,000 a month in donations to OiNK, and he was found
with $300,000 in personal accounts.
Ellis maintained that he was using the
funds to rent server space, and to eventually purchase his own server.
Ellis
also said that he originally built OiNK — which allegedly facilitated over 21
million downloads of 600,000 albums, most of which were pre-release — to
further his programming skills.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u3jrt
(Billboard)
http://snipurl.com/u3js8
(TorrentFreak)
http://snipurl.com/u3jv3
(DMW previous coverage)
