Hackers Attack Virgin Media In Response to The Pirate Bay Block, The Pirate Bay Disagrees With Attack

Not too long ago, the High Court ruled U.K. ISPs must block access to The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay responded, suggesting easily implementable methods to get around the block, but that didn’t stop Virgin Media from complying with the court order and swiftly enacting the block. In response to that, hackers attacked the Virgin Media website, getting it taken offline for a short while. Somewhat surprisingly, The Pirate Bay spoke out against the attack.

A U.K. branch of Anonymous claimed responsibility for the attacks:

#Anonymous have just taken down #VirginMedia website again because of their involvement in the #Censorship of The Pirate Bay #TPB #OpTPB

— Anonymous UK (@AnonUK) May 8, 2012

The Pirate Bay responded on their Facebook page, speaking out against the attacks, stating that they support an open and free Internet, where anyone can express their views, even if The Pirate Bay strongly disagrees with said views.

We do NOT encourage these actions. We believe in the open and free internets, where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us.

TPB then points out that DDoS attacks are a form of censorship, just like the initial Virgin Media block on The Pirate Bay:

So don’t fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship.

If you want to help; start a tracker, arrange a manifestation, join or start a pirate party, teach your friends the art of bittorrent, set up a proxy, write your political representatives, develop a new p2p protocol, print some pro piracy posters and decorate your town with, support our promo bay artists or just be a nice person and give your mom a call to tell her you love her.

Virgin Media responded to the attacks, telling The Register that they feel copyright infringement needs a more compelling deterrent than legal pressure, a stance they’ve taken before, stating that “great content at the right price” would be a decent deterrent to piracy. This, as you probably already know and agree with, is a stance many pirates and non-pirates alike take: “If you give me something worth paying for, I’ll pay for it.” However, the train of thought probably shouldn’t be “If you don’t give me something I want, I will take down your website.”

(via GigaOM)

Relevant to your interests

• High Court rules that U.K. ISPs must block The Pirate Bay
• The Pirate Bay responds and suggests ways around the block
• This is what the block looks like