The Pirates Fight Back

In what looks to be an escalation in the RIAA's (the recording industry's trade group) war on piracy, the pirates are now fighting back. Possibly because of the injunction that the RIAA won last week against the illegal file-sharing service Limewire, RIAA.com was hacked on Friday and taken off the air. The site returned on Friday night and has been on the air since.

A group calling itself "Anonymous" claimed responsibility for the act and announced "Operation Payback" intended as a means of making life as difficult for the trade group as it's made on the music industry's customers that it sued.

Operation Payback seems to be no more than a nuisance to the RIAA, but they're trying to make it as painful as possible. Anonymous started by publishing personal details of RIAA head Mitch Bainwol and his wife, then published office phone and fax numbers in the hopes of causing enough of a disruption as to take the industry group's mind off of the pirates.

I'd venture to say that the RIAA has never gone up against someone willing to fight dirty before. The developments should make for an interesting story to follow over the next few months.

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