Here's a Good Rundown on the Oink.cd Saga
TechCrunch Article (quite fair report apart from the bias on FLAC files, not true)
Article Linked From TechCrunch (the most fair report I've read so far)
The comment I left on the above TechCrunch article
# oink user
October 25th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
i was an oink user for the past few months. i originally found myself there through finding out that an album i had worked on was “leaked” close to 4 months ahead of it’s intended commercial release. i found myself an invitation and started to use it, trying to understand how it works from the user perspective.
i must say, it was a very good system, all it lacked was monetisation. it was easy to find good music, downloads were often good quality (not just FLAC, mp3’s in various rates from the same album for example), lots of lost gems.
i do find the “leaking” of material before it’s intended commercial reelase date quite rude, this is probably mostly done by journalists and people who receieve advance copies. under what intention, i’ve no idea, maybe they want to appear cool and elitist, which it isn’t, at all, since in most cases, people who leak the work were never an integral, crucial part of the making it. in the case of the album i was involved in, i hadn’t even heard the finished version!
oink did have a sense of fairness though, they had no files that led to the new radiohead album and instead, when you searched for it, it went to the band’s website. yes, i bought it as well.
as i said earlier, it was a good website that promoted finding new music and exploration, within a fairly safe environment; real music fans.
if a rights governing body, made from the ground up, that is not full of the political bs that surrounds existing rights agencies for physical and broadcast were to exist and handle rights management and collection of monies from websites such as oink.cd, a subscription model would be perfect. for such, i would be willing to pay.
as for the curent state of music, a lot of the problem lies in the fact that the current value structure is no longer valid and probably has not been for the past 5 years, but a lot of people still want to cling on to this crippled model. believe me, i was/am one of them. i have come to realise in the past few months that those days are gone for many and on it’s last legs for the successful and one has to create a new/recycled viable method of music commerce that is kinder to the curious fan, serious fan, the people that make the music and those that help to sell it.
'nuff said.
