The lawsuits are just a last gasp scare tactic. It's over and they have lost, they know it and everyone knows it. They're gonna continue suing grandmothers and kids untill they run out of money and see they've accomplished nothing.
What bugs me most is the term "criminal". 10 years ago when I bought a CD I liked I borrowed it to everyone who wanted and they either copied it to a cassette tape or burned the disc. How is that any different than copying to .mp3? Was I criminal back then as well?
Times have changed and the record companies have lost track, their greed got the best of them and they're gonna loose big time. No one wants to pay 20$ for a CD anymore, the norms have changed and there's no going back. People want more music, cheaper music and they want it in the format they prefer. That's what made OiNK great, practically unlimited choices. Had some record company been smart enough and made a legal service out of OiNK's model, they would have conquered the new coming market. I would gladly pay for a service such as OiNK. But no, they wanted more and wouldn't give in. Now they can continue to watch CD sales drop and piracy get bigger, eventually they'll have to give in.
The guy who owned OiNK was from England, he's being charged for a lot of things, most of them aren't true. Read more
here and
here. These are shorter.