Great BitTorrent releasers are a comparatively rare breed and until recently, a huge collection of them were safely locked inside a fenced Pink Palace. Now, thanks to the IFPI, trackers around the world and greater numbers of people than ever before are starting to benefit from an influx of talented OiNK refugees.

OiNK was considered by many to be the finest BitTorrent music tracker the world has ever seen. Tracking only the finest recordings from virtually every musical genre, beautifully labeled and cataloged releases were its trademark, created by people who thrived under some of the harshest releasing rules the torrent community had ever seen. Nothing less than the highest quality was good enough for OiNK.

Then the IFPI huffed and puffed and blew down the little pigs home and they had ‘won’.

Not quite. Did the entire OiNK indexed music library disappear? Did the releasers all see the error of their ways and stop releasing there and then? Did all the ex-members give up sharing? No, of course not.

OiNK didn’t carry any content, its users did. Taking out the OiNK site didn’t remove a single song from any of OiNK’s users libraries and they are taking their collections with them as they migrate to other sites, ready to share another day.

TorrentFreak has been listening to some interesting comments from some specialist music trackers (such as those on this list) who are not only getting record numbers of signups in the last few days but are also delighted to welcome talented OiNK releasers who seem really keen to share.

One admin told us: “Since the shutdown of OiNK we’re getting a spike in new memberships, at least 6 times more. Normally some of these can be bad members who do not share or are making trouble in the forum but I am happy to say that many come from OiNK and they are behaving like gentlemen (and ladies!)”

He continued: “We have an uploader application form on our tracker and we ask a few questions to the guy, then we make a decision if he is reliable etc before we give him releasing rights. On a regular day that list has many applications from novices with no experience (which can be trouble!). Now we get many OiNK members asking to release in this one week. They have amazing collections and make a 100% perfect release each time. It’s a great boost for our community.”

TorrentFreak spoke with the admins of three genre-dedicated music trackers who all confirmed that they picked up lots of ex-OiNK members and offers to release this week. This could be the tip of a very, very large iceberg – OiNK covered just about every genre imaginable and all of those sharers were made homeless after the raid – many of them for up to 10 minutes – but immediately settled in elsewhere, ready to share again.

The Pink Palace may be closed, but the beats go on and on as some of the best sharers in the world spread their wings to trackers far and wide. Maybe pigs can fly after all.