Anonymous Hacks Dept. of Justice; Universal Music; MPAA; RIAA for Megaupload Raid

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Anonymous, the collective hacking group, shutdown the websites today for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Copyright Office and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI).

The hackers from Anonymous shutdown the sites in response to today’s federal raid on the file sharing service Megaupload and these companies’ support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (Protect IP Act or PIPA).

Their next target will be the website for the White House.

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“It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org,” Anonymous operative Barrett Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon.

Only hours before the Department of Justice and Universal sites went down, news broke that Megaupload, a massive file sharing site with a reported 50 million daily users, was taken down by federal agents.

Four people linked to Megaupload were arrested in New Zealand and an international crackdown led agents to serving at least 20 search warrants across the globe.

Less than an hour after the DoJ and Universal sites came down, the website for the RIAA, or Recording Industry Association of America, went offline as well. Shortly before 6pm EST, the government’s Copyright.gov site was shutdown too. Thirty minutes later came the site for BMI, or Broadcast Music, Inc, a company that collects licensing fees for songwriters and music performers.

Also today, MPAA.org returned an error as Anonymous hacktivists managed to bring the website for the Motion Picture Association of America. The group, headed by former senator Chris Dodd, is an adamant supporter of both PIPA and SOPA legislation.

Universal Music Group (UMG) is the largest record company in the United States and under its umbrella are the labels Interscope-Geffen-A&M, the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group and Mercury Records.

Their website said: “The Site is under maintenance. Please expect it to be back shortly.”

Brown adds that “more is coming” and Anonymous-aligned hacktivists are pursuing a joint effort with others to “damage campaign raising abilities of remaining Democrats who support SOPA.”

Although many members of Congress have just this week changed their stance on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, the raid on Megaupload Thursday proved that the feds do not need SOPA or its sister legislation, PIPA, in order to pose a blow to the Web.

Brown adds that operatives involved in the project will use an “experimental campaign” and search engine optimization techniques “whereby to forever saddle some of these congressmen with their record on this issue.”