Musician, DJ, and writer Jace Clayton (aka "DJ /rupture") posts the most insightful commentary to date on the demise of bit torrent file-sharing hub, Oink:
Oink was anal, Oink was comprehensive. The site administrators were fierce about quality -- only high-quality files from original CD/vinyl rips could be posted. Many releases were even posted as FLAC (lossless) files. Oink allowed only entire releases, with complete tracklist information (uploading an incomplete album or a poorly labeled MP3 could get you kicked off). No bootlegs or concert recordings or unfinished pre-release mixes were permitted.
In many cases, I believe that downloading an album from Oink would be both faster (more on this in a bit) and give you more information about the CD than sites like iTunes.
Think about that... a free website, which gives fast downloads of music at equivalent or higher quality than the paid music sites. And this free site has an incredibly deep collection of both new and old releases, usually in a variety of file formats and bit-rates.
The whole article is great. If the music industry (or Apple, or anybody!) could create a legal site that was half as comprehensive and usable as Oink, a lot of people would be willing to pay for it.
Previously: Oink Shut Down.
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I just don't know how I missed out on this thing. It sounds awesome - except for the possibly getting sued part.
Audio Galaxy - now THAT was an incredible site and resource. It sounds like the moderators on Oink were compulsive and detail-oriented, and it made for a comprehensive high-quality library, but man, AG had EVERYTHING. Even if the file you wanted wasn't on line at the time, or you were away from your computer, you could still queue up your dreams and find them waiting for you later. That was a long time ago, tho.
It's been 5 1/2 years now since AG was shut down...
Hmmm, I guess you covered that already. Pretty much word-for-word.