A computer programmer who ran one of the world’s biggest pirate music websites from his bedroom was cleared of defrauding thousands of pounds from artists yesterday, writes Murray Wardrop for the Telegraph.

Alan Ellis, 26, was accused of “ripping off” record labels and musicians on a “large scale” by running Oink, a music file sharing website he set up as a student.

When police raided the software engineer’s home in October 2007 they found almost $300,000 (£185,000) in his accounts. Officers also discovered that the site had 200,000 members, who had downloaded around 21 million music files.

….Mr Ellis said he set up Oink as a “hobby” because he was frustrated with his “outdated” software engineering honours degree at Teesside University.

He said never intended to defraud copyright holders and that donations made by users were to cover the server’s rental costs. Any surplus of funds was intended for buying a server, he said.

When his home was raided he allegedly told officers: “All I do is really like Google, to really provide a connection between people. None of the music is on my website.”

You can read the full story on the Telegraph and other news sites. In fact, pretty much every outlet seems to have covered it.