Alan Ellis, the first person in the UK to be prosecuted for illegal file sharing has been found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud. The verdict was reached at Teesside Crown Court on Friday 15th January.

Ellis operated popular website ‘Oink’ from his bedroom in Teesside from 2004 until October 2007 when it was closed down in a police raid. Whilst active, the site enabled the illegal download of 21 million music files and had 2,000,000 users.

The Jury was told that users were asked to make a voluntary donation and Police found that such contributions had amassed to $300,000 (£185,000) in Ellis’s Paypal account.

When questioned as to his motivations in setting up the site, Ellis denied that he had intended to defraud copyright owners and said: "It was to further my skills. To better my skills for employability."

The site didn’t actually host any music but was essentially a platform for users to host and share music files and was a precursor to BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and Mininova.

The British Recorded Music Industry (BPI) reacted to the result in a statement: "This is a hugely disappointing verdict which is out of line with decisions made in similar cases around the world”.

The case comes after a Swedish court last year found four men behind the notorious Pirate Bay torrent site guilty of breaking copyright law and issued jail terms and a £2.4 m fine.

Have your say: The file sharing debate rages on and on in 2010! Is Ellis an innovator or a callous opportunist? What are your thoughts on the verdict and Oink? Is there a difference between Oink and The Pirate Bay?