Anonymous was quick to target the Justice Department, Universal Music, the RIAA, and MPAA in the wake of this afternoon's Megaupload announcement, with the Web sites for all four organizations succumbing to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
Justice.gov and universalmusic.com went offline around 430pm Eastern and have been largely unresponsive for the past 1.5 hours. RIAA.com and MPAA.org are also unresponsive.
"Recording Industry Association of America—Department of Justice—Universal Music—all TT, all TANGO DOWN," Anonymous tweeted this evening with the #OpMegaUpload hashtag.
"The Department of Justice web server hosting justice.gov is currently experiencing a significant increase in activity, resulting in a degradation in service," the DOJ said in a statement. "The Department is working to ensure the website is available while we investigate the origins of this activity, which is being treated as a malicious act until we can fully identify the root cause of the disruption."
Earlier today, the DOJ announced the shutdown of file-sharing site Megaupload. Seven individuals and two corporations were indicted for copyright infringement and could face up to 50 years in prison. Megaupload earned approximately $750 million for its exploits and incurred about $1 billion in damages, the agency alleged.
In its statement, the DOJ said the takedown was "among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States."
How does Universal Music play into this? Megaupload's CEO is Kasseem Dean, better known as hip hop producer Swizz Beatz and husband of Alicia Keys. As reported by the New York Post, Beatz asked high-profile friends like Sean "Diddy" Combs, Kanye West, and Will.i.am to participate in a video promoting Megaupload, which did not sit too well with the artists' label, Universal Music Group. Last month, Universal had YouTube pull "Mega Song," prompting a lawsuit from Megaupload, according to TorrentFreak.
Anonymous has never been a fan of efforts to take down copyright infringers. The group has targeted Sony over its efforts to sue PlayStation hacker George Hotz and gone after the RIAA and the MPAA on numerous occasions.
In a statement issued this afternoon, the MPAA championed the Megaupload takedown. "This criminal case, more than two years in development, shows that law enforcement can take strong action to protect American intellectual property stolen through sites housed in the United States," said Chris Dodd, MPAA chairman and CEO.
The RIAA, meanwhile, said it was "deeply grateful" for the Megaupload shutdown. "The indictment outlines a sinister scheme to generate massive profits through the distribution of the stolen intellectual property of others," RIAA chairman and CEO Cary Sherman said in a statement.
The Megaupload takedown and the DDoS attacks come one day after many Web sites went dark in protest of anti-piracy legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The bills would allow the DOJ to go after overseas, "rogue" Web sites, but opponents argue that the measures are too broad and could harm legitimate Web sites.
The RIAA's Sherman, a supporter of SOPA and PIPA, said the Megaupload news demonstrates why the bills are necessary. "If [Megaupload] were hosted and operated, for example, in a foreign country, our government would be essentially powerless to do anything about it. That needs to change," Sherman said.
Megaupload had operations throughout the world, but had servers in Ashburn, Va. and Washington, D.C., which is how U.S. authorities were able to go after the site.
For more, see the Top 5 Objections to SOPA, PIPA and PCMag analysts' take on the bills, as well as the slideshow below, which features screen shots from Web sites that participated in yesterday's blackout.
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 8:30pm Eastern with comment from the DOJ.