Oink Is Dead, But Here’s Some Other Ways To Download Music
I never used Oink. Actually I had never heard about it until today. But Oink is dead. Apparently it was one of the major bit torrent sites for free (and mostly illegal) music. Apparently they specialized in releasing music that hadn’t reached the official release date.
Sounds kind of cool, but again I found out too late.
In all the hub-bub over its death, lots of places are creating huge lists of similar sites. In case my users did use Oink, here’s a good place to start looking for a replacement.
A lot of those are really cool places to find legal recordings of concerts. I use them for my own bootleg tendencies and love them. Others seem to be intended for more nefarious downloading and I certainly can’t recommend that.
Pay for your music people, or beware of the consequences. Or whatever.
Popularity: 15% [?]
November 1st, 2007 at 6:26 am
i am very anti-illegal downloading… you seem to be promoting it….
here is my story http://techtipsforparents.org/?p=53
November 1st, 2007 at 7:12 am
Oh yeah, I read that post when you wrote it. I guess I had no idea what oink was then, but recently ran across a lot of outrage over it being shut down.
Is there a particular reason you are against it? I’m not saying you shouldn’t be against it, I’m just curious if there are specific reasons for your stance. Like is it a moral argument (stealing is wrong) or is it more like the consequences of getting caught are too steep to risk it?
I’m not really trying to promote it. Lots of sites on the link do go to legal download sites of cool concerts and the like. I frequent those places.
Of course some of the links lead to places where you can get not so legal downloads too. I wouldn’t really tell someone to go to these places, but I realize lots of people choose to download music in this way, and I’d be lying if I sometimes wasn’t one of them.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:01 am
Morals. It is wrong. Imagine you wrote a book. Imagine writing was your livlihood. Imagine for every book you wrote, you earned 5 bucks. Now imagine there was an internet service where people scanned books, then you were able to download them for free, in e-form. Imagine 1,000s of people downloaded your book for free.
Sure, you may say “I wouldn’t buy it anyway, but now that it is free, I will take a listen.” but that doesn’t justify it. I have no plans on buying a 52 inch plasma TV, but if someone offers it to me for free, sure, I will take it. But I won’t STEAL it.
I suppose it would be fine if you called the producer of the music, the writer, the singer, the band, the musicians that are in-house studio guys, the guy who ownes the sudio and charges rent to the guy who runs it, and maybe the families of these people and asked them “Hey, it is okay with you guys if I just download the song you recorded off the internet for free?” I get the feeling they wouldn’t care for that.
On the otherhand,t he music industry is WAY behind. They should have discovered something like Napster before Napster did. If they had, they would be rolling in the dough. They should have figured out ways to protect music from being downloaded before the fad hit, but the didnt and they are paying for it. When my Chevy Blazer got broke into, I shoul dhave bought an alarm system and had it installed, but I didn’t… so I guess it was okay that those thugs broke the window, took all my CDs and my in-dash CD player…. right? I mean, it is my fault I didn’t have an alarm…
I dont know how it is today, but in the old days of P2P sharing, virus was a problem. People were sharing files on other peoples computers, computers with viruses. Illegally downloading music was a sure-fire way to get infected.
And I know there are 100 ways around the law… “I am not illegally downloading the movie,… i am downloading 10 minutes clips from 20 different servers and this software puts the movie together…”
Bottom line, if you are getting a final product that is intended to be sold, and you paid nothing for it, and it wasn’t like, a GIFT, then thats stealing.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:08 am
Now, let me say this…
I am PRO backing up.
I realize alot of people burn a movie or a CD and tounge-in-cheek say “I am backing them up!” but we have a DVD in our van, i would love to make copies of all my DVDs and have a set in the house and a set in the van (But the dvd player in the van doesnt play burned DVDs
)
I also get royally pissed at iTunes. In facgt, I have a folde ron my desktop that says “I hate iTunes” I hate them because of the limitations on burning. and copying. And the fact that I can’t get them tranfered to mp3 format in any easy way.
Thats MY SONG! I PAID FOR IT and by golly if I want it to be the background music for a personal home movie of my child crawling, LET ME!
If I want it on my laptop, the desktop, my work laptop, and burn it on a cd for the van and a cd for the car, LET ME!!!!!
November 1st, 2007 at 11:43 pm
When you get down to it, you are correct, but I do think there are some points (or at least some interesting rationalizations) to be made for the downloading. And since you and I haven’t had a good argument in awhile, I’ll continue
There is a difference in stealing a CD and illegally downloading music. If I walk into Wal-Mart and put ten CDs into my coat pocket and walk out I have stolen a real, tangible object. I have something I can touch and feel, something I can put on a shelf. Wal-mart has lost inventory. There are now ten items they no longer have and can no longer sell. That’s a loss in revenue.
However if I download those same CDs there isn’t a real tangible object so to speak. There is no store anywhere that has a loss of inventory. The music is still right where it always was. And by that I can realistically say that I never had any intention of purchasing that music and therefore the company has no real loss of revenue.
Yes I understand you can argue against this, and truth is that I do have somethng tangible because I can listen to it on my computer toss it into my iPod or burn it to a CD. But still it is a powerful argument and one I suspect a lot of downloaders make to themselves. And in the end there is a difference between the two
You are absolutely right in that the music industry has screwed themselves. They spend all their resources trying to prosecute the downloaders and bullying companies like Apple into only selling music that is loaded with stuff ike DRM (although I hear iTunes is soon to be selling music just like you want)
They should have been the ones to create a napster and bit torrent. They should be working on viable ways to sell the music in a format that the people want and make profit. Instead they burn their customers and then wonder why nobody is buying their music.
I would add though, that the artists (that is the people who actually make the music) receive very little income from the selling of CDs. Even big named artists receive a very small percentage of album sales and most of that is eaten up paying back the studio time etc. So the people you are “stealing” from arent really the artists but the big corporations that own record companies.
The industry also screws the music fan with the price of music and an inability to let us see if it is anygood. CDs cost around 15-20 bucks a pop. Radio is owned by one corporation which plays the same seven songs over and over. If you are lucky and the radio is playing an album you want, then you get to know if one song on that album is any good. Twenty bucks is a lot to pay for one song and a bunch of others that might be crap.
But most artists dont even get the radio play. Who knows if any of the songs on most albums are any good because you sure can’t hear them anywhere.
The industry is in a change. A lot of folks are saying that record companies as we know them are dying.
Look at Radioheads newest album. They made it without the help of a studio and then made it available for download on their website. They basically put it out there and said “pay what you like.” Loads of people paid nothing, but lots of others paid a little bit. Turns out the band made a fortune - tons more than they would have by releasing it through a studio.
Look around and you will see lots of mp3 blogs. They all offer illegal downloads, but most of them are allowed to exist without bother. The reason is because they promote small indie bands. Sure they give away a few songs, but then they rave about how good the bands are and they provie links to where you can get the whole album.
These bands recognize that these blogs are really promoting their music and will help those bands get more recognition and thus make more money.
That was a long ramble simply to say that they way the industry constantly screws both music fans and the actual music makers it is no wonder people are stealing their music.
November 1st, 2007 at 11:45 pm
I don’t think viruses are a problem much anymore. I guess they still might be on p2p networks like bearshare, but i don’t know anybody who still uses those anymore (I guess people still do because they exists but it is such a lousy way to download.)
I use torrent sites and those are always set up so that each download comes with a comment section. You can bet if the downloads aren’t what they say they are someone will call them out. And if it is a virus, then it will get shut down quick.
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:58 am
Your point about Radioheads is a good one. I suppose in the truest form of musical entertainment, this is what artists should do. I mean, they know people will steal their music, why not give it away and if people like it, they pay what they think it is worth. I’ll grant you that.
And even though production companies and radio stations encourage terrible “market friendly” music that is pumped out like a cow is milked, certainly doesn’t mean stealing it is okay (Though, honestly, who is making an effort to steal B. Spears music?)
I was actually more convinced about stealing digital “Dish” TV from a friend of mine who DOES steal software, music and movies from the net. In fact, he offered me a DVD of Return of the King, before it came out in theatres… Anyway, he said that Dish network airwaves run everywhere. “In fact” he said ” they go over my house, through my house, and in my backyard. If I happen to set up a device that happens to catch those airwaves running through my property, so be it.”
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:13 am
There is some aspect to this as well. Digital music is a series of 1s and 0s. If I happen to find a way to put those numbers together in a manner that my music player recognizes as a song, then so be it.
This is also about intellectual property rights more than any normal definition of stealing. Again there isn’t any physical object being stolen. It is music not the CD or whatever being taken and that falls under the intellectual stuff which is a very gray area.
I mean if I borrow a book from the library is that stealing? If I make you a mix tape is that stealing? If I let you borrow a CD and you make a copy of it is that stealing? If I sent you a song that I really love via gmail is that steaing? Even though the record companies want to make this a concrete issue like stealing a car it really isn’t.
I’m not really trying to promote the idea that downloading tons of songs for free without the permission of the artists is OK. But to blanketly say that all downloading/trading/whatever is the same as stealing a phyiscal CD from a store is a bit much in my opinion.
PS why haven’t you joined in my scabble game?
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:25 am
Well get this, in some places, a rep of a production company will sometimes walk into a grocery store for instance, hear the store playing a local radio station, hear a song they produced playing, then demand royalties from the store…
that, my friend, is insane.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:27 am
It is insane. And I think the insanity does nothing but push people to download more music without paying for it. A lot of bands are going for more radiohead routes.
I always try support the smaller bands I love by buying their music and attending their concerts and promoting them here.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:38 am
Software companies are the same way… for a budding artist who wants to get an entry level job as a graphic designer, they NEED to know PhotoShop… well, to learn it, you have to use it… and you use it you have to buy it… and to buy it you need (GASP) $600.
Micrsoft is the same way, if not worse. I called them once to get a quote on 200 licenses for Office 2003 back when it was new. The price was somewhere near 34,000 bucks. I asked them about an educational or bulk discount… they said “thats included in your quote” so I told them that they encourage piracy with prices like that and hung up…
November 4th, 2007 at 1:02 am
well if you must download music for free, I would try:
http://elbo.ws/
http://www.skreemr.com/
if you have one album that you just cant find anywhere, you might be able to find it on emusic and get it for free with your 14 song free trial.
http://emusic.com
December 27th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Oink was great, especially because of the transfer speeds, but there was never enough independent music. Even indietorrents and DC++ don’t compare to the almighty soulseek. Fuck commercial music. Abstract, experimental and music independent of copyright restrictions is where it’s at. Art has no borders.