This article was published on January 13, 2010

Oink Founder Collected £20,000 In Donations


Oink Founder Collected £20,000 In Donations

oinkA court has heard how a Teesside man received £11,000 a month in donations from users of UK-based file-sharing service Oink.

Only months after leaving university, Oink founder Alan Ellis had managed to save £20,000 across several bank accounts.

The BBC reports that Oink was closed down in 2007 but only after 200,000 members downloaded over 21 million files.  Members were obliged to make a donation to Oink in order to be able to invite friends to sign up to the service.

The trial continues, although Ellis has insisted that he didn’t intend to make money and any excess donations were to be used to purchase a new server to host his bedroom-based service.  However, by the time the service was closed down, hosting had migrated to a more resilient commercial service based in Amsterdam.

The <3 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

Ellis, a 26 year old from Middlesborough, denies conspiracy to defraud.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.