It’s been a week since the demise of OiNK, the Internet’s highest quality BitTorrent aggregate, and the arrest of its administrator by British and Dutch authorities, but questions still remain.
Unlike Napster before it, which was highly and publicly prosecuted by the Recording Industry Association of America, the closing of OiNK hasn’t received any comments from the zealously litigious organization.
OiNK was a Web site that linked about 180,000 users to BitTorrents, allowing them to download gigabytes of free, high-bitrate music, often before the release date. At first glance, this sounds like a Web site that the RIAA would be loath to let alone for even a short period of time. Considering the sheer numbers and the pugnacity of the industry, its silence in this case is almost baffling.
As far as I see it, there are two possibilities for this. The first is that the RIAA simply has not heard of OiNK and wasn’t involved with the prosecution of its administrator and the shutdown of its site. Unlikely, because since the advent of file-sharing vigilantes such as MediaDefender, which is at least as technologically advanced as BitTorrent users, there usually is someone ready to tip off the guys in charge.
The second possibility is that the RIAA knew about OiNK, but was studying its users and the effects they have on record sales, or it had decided that the site wasn’t anything to worry about.
While this seems counterintuitive at first, there are a few reasons why the RIAA may not have been too worried about the indie and underground file-sharing site.
First, OiNK users are not the average music consumer. They are music junkies willing to spend the time poring over blogs and magazines and attending concerts to satiate their cravings. As such, much of the music on the site already appeals only to a niche audience and most likely won’t be shared on a large scale anyway.
Second, since a lot of the music shared on the site came from artists represented by independent record labels, the RIAA just doesn’t care at all ““ literally, it’s not its business. Much of the music that appeals to specialized listeners isn’t represented by the Big Four or their pseudo-hip subsidiaries.
Third, for the music that the RIAA does care about and that factors into OiNK, there may be have been some sort of positive outcome for business. Thought about this way, it’s a grassroots, low-profile publicity effort that works something like the way legitimate music criticism operates. Journalists get mailed an album early and for free, giving them a chance to look over it and introduce it to potential buyers. Similarly, as listeners discover music on OiNK, they spread the word through conversation and the Internet to other potential listeners who may then pay for concerts and merchandise or even CDs down the road. And while they probably spread the word about OiNK as well, the publicity may have some beneficial effects. Given the way that record companies are courting bloggers, it’s not a stretch to imagine some sort of effort ““ or just tolerance ““ of a music hype-generating community.
It’s a frequently noted industry estimate that record sales have dropped by a third over the last six years. But the question is, how much did the 180,000 users of OiNK have to do with this? A thing to consider is, not the idea that all file sharing is necessarily detrimental (while it all is illegal), but that some file sharing might not demand prosecution.
I’m not sure where the RIAA stands, but its reticence makes me wonder if it wasn’t sorry to see OiNK go too.
If you think the RIAA is just biding its time, e-mail LaRue at alarue@media.ucla.edu.