Intellectual Property Law

IFPI Site Hacked to Protest Pirate Bay Trial

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

The Swedish website for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry was defaced Thursday by hackers protesting the group's involvement in the ongoing Pirate Bay trial in Stockholm.

The message on the homepage of the recording industry association's website urged Pirate Bay prosecutor Hakan Roswall of Stockholm to "stop lying." The hackers, called "The New Generation," said the intrusion was a "declaration of war against the anti-piracy industry."

The site returned to normalcy early Thursday.

"It is deplorable that these saboteurs will go to such extremes as to infringe on our and others' freedom of speech on the internet," said Lars Gustafsson, a director of the IFPI in Sweden, which is trying to shutter Pirate Bay, the notorious BitTorrent tracker with more than 22 million users.

Peter Sunde, who is one of the four on trial, condemned the attack.

"Whomever is hacking the IFPI websites, please stop doing that," he wrote on Twitter. "It only makes us look bad!"

It's not the first time the IFPI has been swashbuckled. In 2007, the Pirate Bay briefly acquired control of the IFPI's international website site via a cybersquatter.

Threat Level has correspondent Oscar Swartz inside the courtroom of the trial providing gavel-to-gavel coverage. Keep checking for updates.

IMAGE: P2P Blog

See Also:

• Pirate Bay Crew Chums Up to Foes Over Lunch
• Pirate Bay Says It Can't Be Sunk, Servers Scattered Worldwide ...
• Landmark Pirate Bay Trial Begins Monday
• Pirate Bay Trial: The Hottest Ticket in Stockholm
• Pirate Bay Crew Defiant on Eve of Landmark Trial
• Pirate Bay Boycotts Press After Television Ambush
• Prosecution Drops Some Charges Against The Pirate Bay
• Pirate Bay Renamed Beijing Bay After Olympics Tracking

Full post as published by Threat Level on February 19, 2009 (boomark / email).