[sean.bonner]

On <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.oink.cd">www.oink.cd</a><!-- w --> ...

This site has been closed as a result of a criminal investigation by IFPI, BPI,
Cleveland Police and the Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police (FIOD ECD) into
suspected illegal music distribution.


A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site's
users

[srb]

http://www.slyck.com/story1605_OiNK_Busted

[daylight]

This is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet.

[BRoach]

waffles.fm


and if anyone has an invite.... <!-- e --><a href="mailto:brochwerg@hotmail.com">brochwerg@hotmail.com</a><!-- e --> :mrgreen:

[daylight]

I'm concerned that this site is asking me to send proof I was an Oink member. Especially given the hard-on the "authorities" had for prosecuting users. Nevertheless, I sent it, because hey, I'm lost without Oink or something Oinkesque. I actually bought a CD today without having heard it first. What kind of world do we live in?!

[chris]

The wording of many of the "press releases" about this are starting to worry me. I was a small-time user of the site and I only downloaded a few albums, but I know how much info about users a tracker captures, and wonder what the authorities are going to do with it.

[Wheat_King]

how do I send proof that I had an Oink account?

[sean.bonner]

It says I need an invite to sign up, and doesn't mention anything about proving that I was an OiNK member.

[chris]

Go to oink.cd, then to the blog, and it explains that waffles.fm is not oink 2 .0.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://tehpaine.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-of-canapials-awesome-artwork.html">http://tehpaine.blogspot.com/2007/10/mo ... twork.html</a><!-- m -->

"I'm going to make this painfully clear:
We are not affiliated with either waffles.fm or what.cd, although a few of us are members at one of them."

[daylight]

It says I need an invite to sign up, and doesn't mention anything about proving that I was an OiNK member.

The FAQ before the site was up asked people to sent Oink torrents or screenshots to some email address in exchange for membership. I did, but I haven't heard anything back yet. Apparently if you were on some mailing list, you'd be invited as well.

[sean.bonner]

it just launched yesterday...
this makes no sense
if its invite only...who starts it?
and then who can invite people if theres noone downloading to boost your ratio? baaaah!

[sean.bonner]

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9082/Waffles.fm+Wil+Be+PRIVATE,+Sweden-Based+Music+Tracker+Site">http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9082/Waffl ... acker+Site</a><!-- m -->

Waffles.fm is a new PRIVATE BitTorrent tracker scheduled for launch at midnight PST tonight. It promises to be based off of the recently shuttered OiNK's Pink Palace, a loss many music fans like myself are still reeling from.

The name of the site is an obvious reference to the odd message and picture that's been on OiNK for the last few days. It reads "Waffles - These are the waffles that taste really good according to google." and points to a Google search query listing OiNK alternatives.

The people behind the site promise that the site will be 100% private, unlike newer alternatives like the new BOiNK project being currently undertaken by The Pirate Bay. As everybody has pointed out, the critical flaw of a public tracker alternative is that it eliminate the compulsion for share ratios and thus makes download times and content selection abysmal. Also, it would allow anti-piracy and law enforcement organizations to have the ability to take an easy peek at who's sharing what.

From the site:

An open tracker or one without ratio requirements has less selection, less quality (e.g. flac), and less community. There are torrents on The Pirate Bay that have been snatches upwards of ten thousand times, with only a couple of people seeding

This was never the case with OiNK, may it rest in peace, and it will not be the case with waffles.fm.

The only real drawback here is that it's apparently ALREADY invite only according to the site - "Registration will be invite-only from day one." How is this possible? Well, they apparently already have recruited 200 initial seeders who pledge to make as much content up and available. From there the MODs will apparently kick it over to a mailing list that they've been circulating where ex-OiNK users are able to submit "...VALID proof that they were members at OiNK prior to the incident."

So what do they mean by "reasonable proof?"

* A screen shot of your Oink Profile, Header, Snatch List etc.

* Screen shots and/or forwards of any emails received from Oink, including but not limited to: your invite email,

* A receipt of your paypal donation (please remove transaction IDs and/or bank account numbers)

* OiNK torrents left on your machine with full urls


"All members will receive a surplus of invites during the beginning of the website," Waffles.fm continues. "You are highly encouraged and will be rewarded for inviting as many ex-oinker's as you know of as well as uploading your entire oink torrents collection."

The people behind the site admittedly recognize that it may be slow going at first, but that that they're in it for the long haul. They hope to to try and at get as close a clone to the original "Pink Palace" as they possibly can.

"It's going to be a bit slow at first," they continue, "but we're aiming to be the community that OiNK's Pink Palace was, with the same selection of high quality music.

"There will be special competitions during the beginning to make this process even more rewarding - although the greatest is available to everyone: having the best damn music tracker on the net back!"

It's too early to tell how this new "OiNK-based tracker" will fare, but it reminds me once again just how much I miss that darn Pink Palace and will certainly give this site a shot. I was skeptical at first about this 200 person viral invite effort, but I'm starting to think it may just be critical to what a healthy OiNK replacement site needs. It comes down to content selection and share-ratios really, and if these initial users make a good effort to satisfy the former, I think the latter will then take care of itself. Some of those pre-release contacts that OiNK had may be vital as well.

Also very, very smart I think is that somebody over there realized that Sweden is the place to be - the safe harbor for all budding BitTorrent pirates. They note that the "For the first month they will be in the Netherlands. After that we will be moving them to Sweden."

I think we may have at last have the perfect BitTorrent tracker and I'm amazed it hasn't been done before. I mean a private site based in Sweden? It's "waffles" alright, tasty and delicious.

Now it's just time to try and track down an invite.

...and I'm still a bit confused.

[lambsbreath]

I'm not going to pretend that I'm Ned Flanders, but I have no sympathy for these types of sites going under.

If you respect the band, buy their released material.
If you love the band, download their live shows and trade/give them out for free only.

Flame on if you want to...

[chris]

I understand your point lambsbreath, but if the record labels would create/support a system for distributing music that was fair and rewarded fans perhaps the illegal distribution sites wouldn't be as popular?

The Pirate Bay - another torrent site - is looking at buying their own island, creating their own laws, etc to create a haven for these types of sites... and the dough to do something like that comes from supporters... so these fans are willing to part with their cash, just not to the greedy labels feeding the Cribs artists of the moment.

[sean.bonner]

Also...
OiNK had a ton of legal bootlegs.