Illegal music site allowed 21m downloads, jury told

Alan Ellis founded the Oink website, which had about 200,000 members when it was shut down in 2007. The 26-year-old, of Grange Road, Middlesbrough, denies conspiracy to defraud.

Peter Makepeace, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court: "This is not about prosecuting some poor minnow who has taped a record one night and circulated it to their friends.

"This is about large scale, professional, clever, technical ripping off." Opening the case, he said: "From 2004 onwards, Mr Ellis with others ran a pirate music website. That was a website which had private, members-only access and it facilitated the sharing of music files over the internet."

Oink was free to join, but by invitation only, and to be able to propose a friend, users had to pay a donation of at least 5.

It was set up in May 2004 and the site was hosted in Norway, but switched to Amsterdam after the music industry asked it to stop.

Further investigations led police to raid the server site close to Schipol Airport and Ellis's Middlesbrough home simultaneously in October 2007.

Police found donations from around the world in several of Ellis's Paypal accounts.

None of the cash was going to the music industry.