Indie Music Chatter

I woke up to find some very bad news today. Oink.cd, arguably one of the most loved and most comprehensive music tracker on earth was shut down by the Establishment just a few hours ago. October 23, 2007 will now live in infamy as the day when the haven for people who actually have good music tastes was effectively closed. This leaves thousands of music aficionados homeless.

The raid was done by one of the affiliate organizations associated with the RIAA. According to these officials, the raid was the culmination of a two year investigation on Oink. I think it’s a load of crap. If they did spend that much time investigating the site then why were the information they leaked to the public so wrong? First, they said that Oink asked for subscriptions to access the site. This is not true. Membership is free, although it is on an invite only basis. Second, they said that the site “releases” advance copies of albums. Oink doesn’t do that because it is just a TRACKER.

I really don’t know how the RIAA continues to go on these witchhunts that only seek to alienate true music lovers — the ones that really buy music. A vast majority of Oink members actually use the site as a way of getting listen to music to check out if they would love it. And if they do find that they like what they are hearing then they buy the CD. It makes you think that the RIAA wants to stop this practice so that music buyers would just blindly buy the crap that most record companies churn out.

The RIAA should wake to the reality that the paradigm on which they operated before is now effectively obsolete. The sooner they realize the better it will be for true music fans on the internet.

oink.cd, RIAA