Six appear in British court over music piracy
Six men appeared before a court in northern England on Wednesday accused of involvement in a website that distributed pirated music illegally.
Alan Ellis submitted no plea at Teesside magistrates court against the charge of conspiracy to defraud, while five others also submitted no plea for the lesser charge of distributing copyright material.
Ellis, 25, was released on conditional bail, while the other five were released on unconditional bail, with the trial adjourned to next month.
Ellis is accused of setting up and maintaining the oink.cd website that allowed users to download music over the Internet, allegedly illegally.
He was arrested in an Interpol-led raid on music piracy gangs last October, after an international police investigation in conjunction with the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the British Phonographic Industry.
Prosecutors allege that oink.cd customers would pay Ellis via PayPal, a popular Internet payment system, for the provision of singles and albums before they were available to the public.
Copyright 2008 AFP European Edition
