OiNK

Oink's Pink Palace (frequently written as OiNK) was a prominent BitTorrent tracker which operated from 2004 to 2007. Following a two-year investigation by theInternational Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the site was shut down by British and Dutch police agencies.
Operators of the so-called Pink Palace banned low-quality sound files, enforced strict usage rules and mandated that all users’ avatars be “cute” — even taking pains to define exactly what made an avatar appropriately cuddly. All that came to an end in 2007, when the authorities arrested admin Alan Ellis, who created and ran the operation from his Middlesbrough apartment from 2004 to 2007.
Alan Ellis was tried for conspiracy to defraud at Teesside Crown court, the first person in the UK to be prosecuted for illegal file-sharing, and found not guilty on 15 January 2010.

Ellis, who said he crafted the site to brush up on his computer skills, testified the $18,000 (£11,000) a month he earned in PayPal "donations" was for rack space rental and servers.
Oink's invitation-only policy kept it below the radar of most file traders, and the site's operators apparently nixed repeated attempts to create a Wikipedia entry, so as not to draw attention.

The site prohibited games, videos (aside from tutorials), porn, nudity and the selling of invitations.

Wikinomics

Peering

Peering is the free sharing of material on the internet – is good news for businesses when it cuts distribution costs to almost zero, but bad news for people who want to protect their creative materials and ideas as intellectual property (IP). So the ‘roar of collaborative culture’ will change economics beyond recognition, and corporations are forced to respond or perish.

An example of peering would be the sharing of music online, through programs such as Limewire and Bearshare, where music can be downloaded for free from other people sharing their music online. This is illegally done, and the artist gains no money or royalties for the downloading of their music, so the artists are losing out as their music is being given away for free. However, the downloading of music could be advantageous because if the music is readily available, easily and freely, more people will have access to their music which would reduce distribution costs, as they would not have to produce CDs and then distribute the CDs around the world, saving on time and shelf space, as well as fuel and emissions, the downloading of music online proving a more environmentally friendly approach to music distribution. “Corporations are forced to respond or perish”, music shops such as Music Zone and Zavvi have suffered and went into administration as sales went down, but Zavvi now exists as an online retailer only.

Free Creativity

Free creativity is a natural and positive outcome of the free market, so attempting to regulate and control online ‘remix’ creativity is like trying to hold back the tide. The happy medium is achieved by a service such as Creative Commons, which provides licences, which protect IP while at the same time allowing others to remix material within limits.

AMVs, taking pieces of someone else’s work or anime and animation, or remixing an artist’s song. Making mash-ups of videos from a song, using the real music video or film clips together. How far do you go to moderate the use of other people’s IP? There are limits, such as only being able to use 30 seconds of a song before you have to pay.

Democratised Media

The media is democratised by peering, free creativity and the “we media” journalism produced by ordinary people.

We Media, 9/11, a TV show made up of films and photographs, reports from citizens; we can now contribute to the news, to the media, becoming reporters ourselves. People have more of a voice, and can get their opinion across more because of We Media, because people get a chance. Normal people can provide traffic reports and photographs of current events, sending them in to the news.

Thinking Globally

Web 2.0 makes thinking globally inevitable. The Internet is the ‘worlds biggest coffeehouse’, a virtual space in which a new blog is created every second. In this instantly global communication sphere, national and cultural boundaries are inevitably reduced.

Rather than visiting a place, you can just Google it. We can talk to people, play online, with people on the other side of the world, expanding our knowledge and culture, as well as the opportunities available. Metting people you would never know without the Internet, Internet dating, chat rooms, WOW.

The Perfect Storm

The combination of three things – technology (web 2.0), demographics (young people are described as ‘digital natives’ – they have grown up in a collaborative virtual world which to them is natural and instinctive) and economics (the development of a global economy where business can, and must, think of its market as international, given that traditional, national production structures have declined as we have entered the knowledge economy) – results in a perfect storm, which creates such a force that resistance is impossible, so any media company trying to operate without web 2.0 will be like a small fishing boat on the sea during this freak meteorological occurrence.

Younger people might have better prospects for jobs because they understand the technology, can imagine more ideas. Businesses must join the storm, they must adapt, develop, smaller businesses will be left behind, they will go down if they don’t set up websites, expand their market and advance their advertising. Resistance is impossible, people need to move with the times.

Questionnaire results

I asked 17 students in my college, all aged 17-18 my questionnaire, and these are the results I gained.

All 17 students listen to music online, and the graph below shows the websites people use in relation to the number of students.

Most people fid out about new music from the radio, or the UK Chart, but some people use Myspace or the links from Youtube pages.

I asked the question, do you download music? Here are the results.

Out of the 14 people who download music, not all of them download it legally.

Only 7 out of 17 people sometimes buy CDs from shops, or online, mostly from Amazon.com, and some of the most recent CDs purchased were Pink Floyd from HMV, Korn from Virgin Music Store, and a Muse album from HMV. 

While only a few could remember their last CD purchase, 10 people out of the 17 can remember their last download, inlcuding artists such as Box Car Racer and Newton Faulkner, as well as some tracks that are currently in the charts, such as Marina & The Diamonds - Hollywood and Ke$ha - Party At A Rich Boys House.

Most people do not buy CDs anymore, but those who do, prefer to purchase their CDs online, rather than going to a shop, because this can prove to be cheaper, such as Play.com, because online shops only have to pay for warehouse space, not shelf space. Also, buying online gives you the opportunity to pre-order CDs, get them delivered to your house, and gives you access to offers and discounts that wouldn't be available in the shops.

When downloading songs, you are given the chance to choose between downloading only the songs which you know you like, or download a whole album, giving you the opportunity to hear the other music by the artist.

Do you prefer to have whole albums, or just pick and choose the songs you want?

It's clear to see that the majority of people download as opposed to purchasing their music the traditional way. Downloading is simply easier, quicker, and in some cases, free. New technology has provided us with a lot more opportunities, ways to make things easier for ourselves, and we have begun to take these things for granted. As for Chris Anderson's Long Tail Theory, I am unsure as to whether my research proves or disproves this theory completely, although my research favours certain elements of the theory, as some of the recent albums purchased by students, or songs downloaded, are not chart albums or tracks, they are albums that not all shops would stock, but that are available on the internet, proving part of the Long Tail theory to be correct.

Questionnaire

Do you listen to music online?

Which websites do you use to listen to music?

How do you find out about new music?

If you use the Internet, which websites do you use?

Do you download music?

If yes, do you download music legally or illegally?

Do you buy CDs from the shops?

Do you buy CDs online? (e.g. Play.com, Amazon)

What was the last CD you bought, and where did you buy it?

What was your last download?

Do you prefer to buy your CDs online or in a shop?

Do you prefer to have whole albums, or just pick and choose the songs you want?