RIAA site defaced by hackers

This was posted on ircspy.com...


http://www.ircspy.com/comments.asp?mode=view&id=668

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The RIAA has drawn the scorn of legions of Internet denizens in recent years for its stance on Internet radio broadcast fees and peer-to-peer networking. The organization became infamous to millions of users after filing an injunction against the popular free music-swapping program, Napster.
But even if and when the organization does find out what happened, RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy told internetnews.com he wouldn't issue any information about the defacement.
"All I can tell you is there's a problem with our site that we are fixing," Lamy said. "It should be back up shortly."
Only the home page was defaced, as far as officals can tell, though the links pointed to existing RIAA.org Web pages. The defaced site featured such tidbits as "Inside the RIAA with Eric Cartman" -- the best-known character from the irreverent Comedy Central cartoon "South Park" -- and "Piracy can be beneficial to the music industry" -- an acerbic touch flung in the face of the biggest opponent to digital music piracy.
Also, a link entitled "Where can I find information on giant monkeys?" took readers to the biography page of Hilary Rosen, RIAA chief executive officer.

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Jimmy Hendrix once said "scuze me, while I kiss the sky".

Scuze ME while I piss myself laughing.

Not that I want to condone such behavior, but GOOD FOR THEM. Lol

Hell, I like it. It's about time the battle was waged in our court. w00t w00t w00t.

Officially though, as an ethical (*cough* bullshit *cough*) member of the online community I cannot support illegal and immoral action taken for any reason. I wholeheartedly support the law and law enforcement...

I think you're all missing the point. Wheres Jason when you need him, baseball bats and hockey masks. They've struck the first blow we should follow up with the battle. Or perhaps..... just perhaps...... nah

http://www.riaa.com/

Looks like they fixed it back.

BAD FOR HACKERS.... ;)

OH but of course; if a convicted killer defaced the DOJ website we would be all like 'w00t'. And of course, if a script-monkey defaced their teachers website because they got detention, we would be all 'w00tish' as well.

The fact is, the RIAA are perfectly within their legal rights to prosecute those who share music in defiance of the law. Defacing their website is petty and lame; all battles should be done by the book, in court. I honestly dont care if the majority of the online population disagrees with their policies, it still doesnt make it right.

I wish the online community would grow up.

OK Abtronic, you are right, but I feel there are definatly two sides to this dilema. I mean a lot of people feel that the way RIAA goes about their business is immoral and yet it is "within thier rights"? So normal legal chanels will not help and according to the law here (I can't speak for anywhere else) if legal channels can't help you then you are within your rights to take the law into your own hands. I guess what I am trying to say is that people feel a certain way about the way RIAA conducts thier business and are expressing that in the only way they can / know how. I think that might even fall under freedom of expression...

No legal channels? If the RIAA prosecutes you, you are able to hire a lawyer and defend your point of view that you were "within your rights" to share copious amonts of music in a court of law.

Excuse the analogy, but i would like to give mention to the child pornogrophers of the world; im sure that they feel *they* are being treated 'immorally' by the police when all they are doing is expressing their "love for children" (or so they say), but the fact remains that law is law.
I recall a few threads on the subject on these very boards, where many a newbie would say something along the lines of "lets deface child porn websites" or "i just attacked a child porn site, look at me"... before being quickly berated by senior members and subsequently banned.
The way i see it, child porn is illegal, and so is sharing incredible amounts of music. The online community holds radically different views on both topics, yet usually the concourance is the same: attacking/defacing websites is bad, no matter what your reason.

Regards..

Abtronic
Look I think you are missunderstanding me here. I am not saying that sharing music is right. I am not even saying that RIAA should not do their jobs but going after children that "Legally" do not know any better and then claiming royalties... That is just plain wrong you can't expect to claim thousands of dollars in royalties from a 14 year old that was just doing what all his / her friends were doing. They should be putting some of thier resources to educating and preventing and not just declaring all out war.

If you want to get all uptight about it then fine, it's your blood pressure not mine, but remember this; This civilisation was built by people that did not follow the rules blindly but questioned what was wrong and what was right and did something about it.

What I don't understand is why the RIAA hasn't taken the common sense approach to securing their online presence. No one there anticipated something like this? I mean hell, who is watching the shop over there? Do they really think that after pissing off people who are computer savvy that something like this was not going to happen?

Personally i do find it amusing but at the end of the day it certanly wouldn`t of done any good. If anything its just gonna make things worse, the head of company aint gonna think lets back down because they defaced our site, hes more likely to be thinking lets come down even harder on everyone to teach them that we wont tolerate that kinda behaviour.

If I was a singer and I found out that millions of people are sharing my music over P2P services, I'd be pretty happy that I have that many fans, wouldnt you?

Just goes to show that all the artists that want the RIAA to sue is just in there little buisness for $$$.

The discussion going on here is actually about what freedom is. I believe the popularity of the global network depends on the uncertain limits of freedom. If virtual life had strict limits, it wouldn't be more different than everyday's world. None of us can easily deny the sweetness of the idea of 'having no bonds and limits at all'. It is not about filesharing or attacking networks. Net is the only place where you can simulate actual 'freedom'. For that reason, I don't support any of the sides. Censorship and intrusion of privacy are what both the authority and hackers do. And will continue to grow with each new government regulation and hacker attack. How far will it go? Complete data flow control (and passports for internet, maybe) and out-of-service or damaged servers which are designed for public benefit?

__________________

"By the way, don't forget to live sometimes..."

I can say just WOW. First try was good one. What should thay (RIAA and HACKERS) do next time? Hehe.....

Does it mean beging or continue of cyberwar?
Poor people needs help, who can help them?
People needs some alternatives both of them can do it. And thay do it.

Yee, "I am going to freeware poor life" == Some alternatives exist, not so good but.... I dont need more yet.
Hehe.
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....Ouch, it can be bad for me if I will sell my own producs for PCs :(
some one may crack them and share. But..... I dont care about this right now.

Latest in the UK is about the gamers right to make a back-up disc of their legally owned games.( From PCZone Jan 04 edition, P 12 ) there is a right under the copyright law ( section 50(A) 1988 copyright designs and patents act.
Now however the UK Gov has passed the - copyright and related rights regulations 2003 act, in this, section 296Z, makes it an offence to do anything which circumvents the copyright protection. CATCH 22. basically, you are allowed to make a back up copy, which automatically breaks the new law ????? PCZone is contemplating a test case because it is an offence to deprive the consumer of any right EXPLICITLY granted to them by law,and the copy protection means that you ARE deprived.
this is just a thumb nail sketch of the argument, but there was enough in the mag to give me a headache reading it !!!!

Quote:

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Originally posted here by NetKill
The discussion going on here is actually about what freedom is. I believe the popularity of the global network depends on the uncertain limits of freedom. If virtual life had strict limits, it wouldn't be more different than everyday's world. None of us can easily deny the sweetness of the idea of 'having no bonds and limits at all'. It is not about filesharing or attacking networks. Net is the only place where you can simulate actual 'freedom'. For that reason, I don't support any of the sides. Censorship and intrusion of privacy are what both the authority and hackers do. And will continue to grow with each new government regulation and hacker attack. How far will it go? Complete data flow control (and passports for internet, maybe) and out-of-service or damaged servers which are designed for public benefit?

__________________

"By the way, don't forget to live sometimes..."

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I fear that you are looking for an euphoric Utopia that will never exist. Although, I do agree with you, it would be ideal to have an unrestricted environment on the net. Reality though, dictates that any environment without restrictions results in anarchy. And it seems to me that hackers and web defacers promote anarchy. I'm not saying that the RIAA's actions are correct by any means, but they are right according to our existing laws. We have to remember that freedom is earned, not granted. I earned my degree so that a corproation could value my services and pay me for work. I am certainly glad that technology is not capable of instantly cloning my working skills, thereby rendering me incapable of earning a living, which is essentially what rippers are doing now to the music artists. Just trying the shoe on the other foot here.

Aslo note the RIAA has sought to change existing laws to make it legal to hack into potential voilaters of copyrighted material covered by artist agreement with the RIAA. You have to understand that people take offense to that behavior. The fear factor in this country is, actual lawmakers and elected officials have voiced the same opinion in "legalizing" coorporate hacking. How can one make a stance that those actions are OK?

RIAA has all rights to drag "music pirates" butts to court. Musicians works hard, and if you like the music why not buy it. Hell, what a cheap tradition, not to buy. Music cd's just cost 10 bucks. But some people would rather go through all the pain to retreive password file, crack it, design html welcome page and then upload it, with a risk to go to prison for long time. Don't you think, this is an expensive risk to take. Why not buy the music and pay your fair share to community and everyone is happy. Just ten bucks, may be cheaper if you get it through napster.

Yep they are doing a good job dragging in 12 year old girls. :D Only a small elite group of artist publically support the RIAA. Not every artist feels the same way about their work. I do think the RA has the right to prosecute those who are downloading music but not change existing laws to subject their own agenda through intimidation and threats to destroy private property.

While i agree with the fact that sharing music online is illegal, this is selective prosecution. if you're going to sue someone with 1000 downloaded songs, they are still breaking the same law as a person who shares 4 or 5 songs. Both are pirating music and stealing form the RIAA. Have them prosecute EVERYONE who shares music. Thats the only way to stop them. Because for every person that the RIAA sues, two more people start downloading. Seriously, when did the RIAA become a law enforcement agency? When the federal government starts suing people, then people will stop. Until then, the RIAA will not put a dent in to piracy.


slick

At least in the USA they could go after everyone. I wonder how much of a dent that would actually make on a global scale? You have touched on my point the RIAA is not a law enforcement agency and they are seeking the "powers" to become one - their own.

Here is somethinge very curious, did you all know the SAME recording companies are using P2P to target market areas? Crazy... they use Big Champagne. Geo-locations where a particular artist is steadily downloaded are targeted with add campaigns. Crazy....

I think a round of beers for the group of crackers that did this is in order.

Who's with me? :D

RoadClosed, you just pointed out an excellent example of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade"

I think I'll have a glass myself!!

EDIT: btw, why is this thread showing as very negative? I see alot of positive ap's?

EDIT2: vodka? Why yes, as a matter of fact.. :)

Any Vodka in that? It IS Friday afterall...

I'm going to have to agree with RoadClosed here in that not all music artists support the RIAA or have a problem with having their music shared through peer-to-peer, ftp, and or other digital mediums. Being in a local band myself, I think it's great to get my music out there on a global scale which likely wouldn't otherwise through the minimal distribution methods I have access to. The problem I see with the RIAA is their blatant anti stance against p2p without realizing there are some (although maybe not a majority) of people that use music swapping legitimately, and want to get their music to a broader audience.

Overall, I think music swapping is great if used legally and I don't feel a bunch of bad apples should ruin it for the few of us that use it for our own benefit.

I got a bottle of bourbon we can share for this discussion. Ancient Age actually. Damn fine stuff.

There are so many sides to this thing though. Are we fighting an unjust organization or are we just causing trouble for a group completely within their rights to do business....

This is anything but black and white.

EDIT: /me passes the bottle

I agree with the hacking of the RIAA website (Not that I encourage hacking) because I feel that the RIAA should send to court those who provide internet users with music not those who download them. Because look at what happened to that 14 year old girl, I read on the news that her mom was paying I think about $20.00/month to download music of the internet and she thought that since she was paying she is perfectly in her rights to download music. But then the RIAA sues her for downloading music off the internet. The RIAA only sues people who cannot fight back but never big companies who have the money to fight back with real lawyers. As I said they should sue the companies who allow the downloading of music and not the users.

Many things are legal but unethical.

And I wouldn't say the courts present alot of recourse, do you call wasting months or years of your life and going into debt just to prove your "innocent" fair?

I'd say our judicial system is becoming increasingly the injustice system.

Two things...

First of all, screw the RIAA.

Second, y'all have to have noticed Metallica's support of the RIAA, right? Well, in the booklet for one of their albums, they thank some guy for letting them "copy all those records back in the day" or something similar. F#cking hippocrites.


(didn't this thread die?)

Just a question of curiosity. When the RIAA decides to take someone to court and they find that you have 1000 songs or more. Do they only decide to fine you if you only have music of the artist that support them ? Or does it include all music even if the artist[s] doesn't agree with them ? Just wondering

If the music industry had payed attention to what Napster was doing in the beginning they would own the P2P networks.

Musicians who refuse change will be left behind ...

The RIAA should focus on the people who create the software. But of course that would still not stop it why ? Well there is always instant messaging, e-mail , steganograpic tools etc etc ... [ Not that I condon this type of activity ]

Humm musicians loosing money : concerts , advertisemensts , products humm lets add that up ... dont think so ...

I have friends who download music of the internet and it is not of excellent quality in my opinion it's just ok. Unlike what most people would like to make you believe.

web defacment i dont agree with as its just lame but when the RIAA says that p2p is causing a decress in record sales thats just BS

ok singles sales have dropped but albumn sales are up - if i like a song i have heard by someone i might download another if i like 2 i'll prolly go buy the albumn like most people I will not however pay £5 for a single thats ridiculous - an albumn of like 12/14 tracks costs £8/£12 and they wanna charge you £5 for a cd with like 2 tracks on it - dont think so

plus i think the reason for the biggest drop in slaes is not the use of p2p software - is just cause all the music these days is a load of sh1te

come on is there ever a week when some manufactured popstars/fame acadamy or other crappy band are not in the charts?? ffs the only bands/people to have more number 1 hits in the uk than westlife is elvis and the beatles - and westlife is no-where near the same league as either of them

RIAA - and also their counterpart in the UK should stop spending so much money trying to prosecute 12yr old girls and start investing the money in finding some true musicians who can write & perform their own music

v_Ln