A Foolish Consistency

OiNK founder Alan Ellis stated after his arrest for conspiracy to defraud and copyright infringement “I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t believe my website breaks the law. They don’t understand how it works . . . I don’t sell music to people, I just direct them to it. If somebody wants to illegally download music they are going to do it whether my site is there or not . . . My site is no different to something like Google . . . If Google directed someone to a site they can illegally download music they are doing the same as what I have been accused of. I am not making any Oink users break the law. People don’t pay to use the site.” That would be true if Google were a members-only site organized to facilitate sharing of copyrighted music, where membership status was determined based on the quantity of content one made available for other members.