BRITISH and Dutch police say they have shut down the website OiNK, the world's biggest source of pirated pre-release chart albums.

OiNK distributed albums often weeks ahead of their official release date.

More than 60 major album releases had been leaked onto the internet so far this year.

The site had an estimated membership of 180,000.

People were only invited to become members if they could prove they had music to offer and had to keep posting tracks to maintain their membership.

It is alleged the site was operated by a 24-year-old man who lived near Middlesbrough in northeast England.

He was arrested today.

The site's servers, based in Amsterdam, were seized in raids last week.

The Interpol-coordinated raids followed a two-year investigation by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry bodies.

"OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online," said Jeremy Banks, head of the IFPI's internet anti-piracy unit.

"This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure. This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22637786-23109,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tees/7057812.stm
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL2315584520071023

This comes straight after tv-links.co.uk got recently shut down :(