This article is more than 1 year old

Pigopolist's pants still down

RIAA website just carries on giving

It's taken two days for the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) to restore the front page of its website, after hackers defaced large sections on Wednesday in the third attack in recent weeks.

But the Pigopolist has still left this page open, containing downloadable MP3s.

It reads:-

RIAA to sue music sharers? Not Anymore

With the legal file sharing service kazaa still online, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) today announced that it intends to offer the latest albums for download from riaa.org.

As you are probably aware, the RIAA has been pursuing a policy of preventing this activity in recent months

We have recently become aware that this approach is yielding only limited results and in some cases may in fact be harming sales and the artists' revenue stream.

The RIAA wishes to apologise for the heavy-handed manner in which the popular chinese site Listen4Ever was closed down, and would like to present the following items for free download as a token of its goodwill.

Of course the list is relatively small, but please be patient - we expect to offer over 300 next week. We also intend to offer pre-released movies in the coming months.

And so what started out as a standard defacement continues to delight file sharers, as it's a terrific metaphor for the RIAA's inability to come to terms with the web. What chance, do you think, that this will have been fixed by the time the Pigopolists return from a long, Labor Day weekend of blowing white powder up their snouts?

Bootnote: Five years ago, after the British Labour Party's website was defaced, I was filmed for a slot on the early evening ITN TV news bulletin. The reporter in all seriousness asked me if this meant the web should now be closed down. I replied that this would be like closing down the bus network simply because shelters were being graffitied. However, I won't be surprised if the RIAA - which supports hacking into your computer on the pretext of preventing file sharing - now adopts this bold argument ®

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