The Internet hacktivist collective Anonymous today reportedly took down the website of the MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America, just one day after an international protest against misguided Congressional anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA. The MPAA was seen as the key supporter of those bills. The action, credited to Anonymous, was believed to be in response to the U.S. Department of Justice’s raid on file sharing service MegaUpload, and arrest of MegaUpload employees.
Anonymous also took down the wen sites for the Department of Justice (DOJ), Universal Music Group, the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and the U.S. Copyright Office website.
Forbes reports:
Just minutes after the U.S. Department of Justice repossessed the domains of Megaupload, Megavideo, Megaporn and a collection of other popular filesharing sites, the hacker collective Anonymous got to work on a few takedowns of its own.
On Thursday afternoon, Anonymous claimed credit for cyberattacks that knocked offline the websites of the U.S. Department of Justice, Recording Industry of America, Motion Picture Association of America and Universal Music. The so-called denial of service attacks that overwhelmed those sites with junk traffic came less than an hour after the Justice Department announced the takedown of the Mega sites, along with the arrest of former hacker and Mega founder Kim Dotcom and six others, who are being indicted on charges of copyright infringement and money laundering.
“One thing is certain: EXPECT US!,â€Â wrote the Anonymous-linked Anonops Twitter feed Thursday just after the Mega raid, adding a hashtag for Megaupload.
“Anonymous/Megaupload backlash update: http://RIAA.ORG is now Tango Down,â€Â wrote the Twitter feed Anonnews less than one hour later, as other Anonymous feeds claimed credit for downing Justice.gov and Universalmusic.com.
As of this writing, the websites of the DOJ, RIAA, and Universal Music Group appear to be down, and of the MPAA and U.S. Copyright Office are up, although the U.S. Copyright Office site appears to be experiencing latency.
The L.A. Times reports:
In an indictment, the Justice Department alleged that MegaUpload was a “mega conspiracy” and a global criminal organization “whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale.”
The Justice Department said MegaUpload, which had about 150 million users, tallied up harm to copyright holders in excess of $500 million by allowing users to illegally share movies, music and other files. Prosecutors said in the indictment that the site’s operators raked in an income from it that topped $175 million.