What was the name of that site?

yes it was a bit strong but when you have lost your job through people selling hooky DVDs and Albums plus illegally downloaded then you really wont give a **** what you say.

thought this was scary........

Pirate site allowed 21m downloads
Last Updated: Thursday, 07 January 2010, 17:37 GMT
- Search: Oink courts

Alan Ellis ran the illegal pirate music site which allowed 21 million downloadsA man who ran an illegal "pirate" music site which allowed 21 million downloads had almost 300,000 US dollars in his accounts when police raided his home, a jury has heard.

Alan Ellis founded the Oink website, which had around 200,000 members when it was shut down in 2007.

The 26-year-old, of Grange Road, Middlesbrough, denies conspiracy to defraud.

Peter Makepeace, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court: "This is not about prosecuting some poor minnow who has taped a record one night and circulated it to their friends. This is about large scale, professional, clever, technical ripping off.

"From 2004 onwards, Mr Ellis with others ran a pirate music website. That was a website which had private, members-only access and it facilitated the sharing of music files over the internet."

Oink was free to join, but by invitation only, and to be able to propose a friend, users had to pay a donation of at least £5. It was set up in May 2004 and the site was hosted in Norway, but switched to Amsterdam in December that year after the music industry asked it to stop.

Further investigations led police to raid the server site close to Schipol Airport and Ellis's Middlesbrough home simultaneously in October 2007.

Mr Makepeace said: "This site had facilitated a staggering 21 million downloads of those available files. It is clear that he received by way of donations personally, almost 300,000 dollars."

Oink did not host any music itself, it indexed the files users had available on their computers for others to download, the jury heard.

When he was interviewed by police, Ellis insisted it was "out of my hands" what members did and likened Oink to a search engine, Mr Makepeace said.

Last Updated: Thursday, 7 January 2010, 21:37 GMT

Aloha !

My site is exactly that. People who taped a show and then circulate it to their friends. In the end it gives Bon Jovi fans more possibilities to listen to recordings. It's not going to stop them from visiting a show at all, while downloading official MP3's does stop people from buying the album instead.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Over 20 replies to the OP and the fun police haven't reminded us, and rightly so, that there is an no file sharing policy in place on the site...or maybe someone has, I had to skip past most of this.

There's too many stupid arguements for and against illegal downloading being made here, so I'm not going to add to the nonsense.

What an excellent contribution to the conversation that was

I was contemplating closing the thread - the no file sharing policy is one of the rules of the administrator, so basically I couldn't care less whether you agree with it or not - but so far there's no actual file sharing or file sharing requests going on here. Keep it that way, please

Geez I didn't know how anal people can be over downloading 1 or 2 songs.

For several years now I have been dead against illegal music downloads. My friends think I'm nuts for using iTunes and paying for my music. It's something I pride myself in.

Having said this, if there is a song a can't buy in the shops or on iTunes, I will download it. This happens very rarely. I just went through my Bon Jovi playlist and the only songs I have illegaly obtained (with the exception of unreleased material) are a few bonus tracks from international album versions.

These Open Arms
Walk Like a Man
NeuroticIa
Stay
Postcards From the Wasteland

I don't see anything wrong with downloading bonus tracks which can't be bought at the shops down the road or online. And I'm not gonna go buy the whole entire album again online for just 1 song. I'll always search first before downloading, for example I purchased Put the Boy Back In Cowboy from iTunes. I just don't see the logic in paying for a full album again just for the 1 song. TBH I doubt even the artists care. I mean you've already paid for the album.

That's how I see it anyway. Each to their own though.

What baffles me is the fact that bands do these bonus tracks on some regional countries and yet dont have the cop on to make them available from an offical site a certain time after the official release,that way ensuring traffic goes through their site(seeing what else is going on) and people get proper quality versions and could possible earn them a few extra quid.......

i have th songs now as I copied them from my Dads Itunes.

So what is everyone's opinion about downloading a track like Nothing? An outtake that, as far as I know, was never officially released by Bon Jovi. Or unreleased demos in general?

As long as it is not comercially available (demos are usually in bad quality if they are in circualtion) I have no problem with that!