RIAA Web site hack allows music file downloads

IDG News Service - The Recording Industry Association of America Inc.'s (RIAA) Web site apparently was hacked today, forcing the music industry backer into a most unnatural act -- providing free music for download.
The RIAA has led the fight against the trading of copyrighted music on the Internet. Now hackers have attacked back at the organization by altering its home page, changing some content on the site and making music available for download. Users flocked to the Web this morning to display screenshots of the RIAA's altered site and to list the songs they were able to download.
"There is a problem with our site that we are fixing," said an RIAA spokeswoman who declined to be named. "It should be back up shortly." The RIAA declined to provide any details about when the "problem" with its site began or to confirm that it was hacked.
The changes made to the RIAA site appeared to be retaliation for a lawsuit filed by the organization earlier this month against a Chinese music download site. The RIAA dropped its suit against the site last week after it was taken off-line (see story). The RIAA Web site has also been hit in recent weeks by denial-of-service attacks, in which computers controlled by hackers bombarded the site with requests, making it unavailable to most users (see story).
A message on the apparently hacked RIAA Web site said, "The RIAA wishes to apologize for the heavy-handed manner in which the popular chinese [sic] site Listen4Ever was closed down, and would like to present the following items for free download as a token of its goodwill." The altered RIAA home page included a link to that message.
The message went on to say, "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."
Some users were apparently able to download songs from the RIAA site for several hours early today until it became unreachable due either to heavy traffic or to the RIAA taking the site down.
Other links on the hacked home page led to messages such as, "Piracy can be beneficial to the music industry."
The RIAA has filed lawsuits against several music trading sites during the past two years, most notably Napster Inc., and has garnered considerable scorn from music fans who used Napster and similar sites.