Anonymous declares war on copyright enforcers, demands more lawsuits against P2P services

Anonymous, having driven the Church of Scientology into bankruptcy, has now declared war on the entertainment industry -- apparently, they're upset that the record companies aren't suing enough P2P sites:

We have been watching you. We are focusing all our eyes on your multiple organizations. As you are watching this video we are currently planning our next attack. You have already angered us greatly and now, all you can do is pray that we will show mercy. We will strike from every possible direction. You will not know who we are or what our next move will be. We have no central leader, no government, nobody to tell us what to do. We operate on the principles of free speech and anonymity. The very principles which the verdict against the pirate bay dot org is threatening to destroy. And this is why we attack. Because deep down we know that together, as a unit, we can ban together and defeat you, the great oppressor, who has been present since the dawn of man.
It is true that by using file sharing networks we may be committing a crime. But there is no crime greater than favoring one company over another in the corrupt eyes of the law. The founders of thepiratebay.org are awaiting their jail sentence and the founders of isohunt.com and btjunkie.org are living free with no worries from the law. We strike because we know that it is not about legality, it is not about lawlessness, it is not about going against your principles, as you obviously have none. It is about Justice, true justice that only a member of our organization can see. And believe me, we are many. And we will all carry out Justice that the rest of the world will not.

Message to Anti-Piracy (Thanks, Judge!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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skore

#13

Still the best video though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0ZFow_9vsg
ab5tract

Honestly, I can’t understand ‘anon’. This group is supposedly “cool” and “down with the man” in their “rhetoric”, but one visit to 4chan is all it takes to realize these people are racists, homophobes, and often truly stupid. I mean, I’m all about taking on the Man, but these fools are taking a concept (anonymity) and basically branding it with their (often unintelligible) politics.

Am I the only one who fears a backlash against anonymity on the web when these people co-opt the idea and brand it with what often simply boils down to absurdity?
Anonymous

much better. Chanology was getting lame.
Cory Doctorow

@14, @15: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm for citation.
Daemon

#17 – That is also quite cool, if a bit overdone for my taste. I really did the minimalism in the other two. On the other hand the broad referencing of Max Headroom was quite cool.
Anonymous

@18 Oh that was Sarcasm! Oh Riiiiiight. Do forgive us mere mortals! For we lack the highly evolved pineal glands that gives us these telepathic insights when reading on the internet.
ptsd

“Anonymous, having driven the Church of Scientology into bankruptcy… ” However much I would like to believe that claim, I’m finding a bit hard. Could anyone please type in a link with more details on that specific subject?

P.S. sorry ’bout hijacking the thread!
Anonymous

Hey Anonymous, how about declaring war on marijuana prohibition? it’s time these senseless laws get sensible.
monstrinho_do_biscoito

freedom of information by whatever means necessary.
Anonymous

Get back to me when they’ve taken on the Military/Industrial Complex.
Takuan

now ya get it!
Anonymous

Petulant, barely literate children speaking on behalf of anonymous?

I suppose it reflects the recent trends in anonymous participation, but it’s still disappointing.
EyeSpy Guy

@59 & 60: ab5tract,

You can’t see past the racial slurs and homophobic aspersions? The joke _is_ on you.

Anonymous honestly doesn’t give a shit about the color of skin or sexual orientation. You do, and because you do these words have power over you. Anonymous is doing this just to piss you off, and it is working. They are laughing at you, not with you. Ironic that you strive for political correctness yet only entrench the social differences and stigma? Not really.

As to bomb threats; how many Anonymous are there? How many bomb threats have there been? The USA’s stupid overreaction and security theater is much more of a concern than an ironic and effective protest of same. Or don’t you think Anonymous is capable of such a sophisticated reasons for a “Fuck You”? Besides, Anonymous did it for the luls. Epic luls, again at you.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  EyeSpy Guy,
  
  Please try to treat your fellow commenters with less disdain.
Cory Doctorow

@20: see @18 for the answer
Anonymous

sarcasm?

on bOINGbOING?
Brainspore

@ Halloween Jack #30:

I was just thinking the same thing about Alan Moore, especially since he’s always griping about what people have done with his work. (And those were the legal adaptations!)
Anonymous

And now it is gone. “Removed by user.”
Bugs

But there is no crime greater than favoring one company over another in the corrupt eyes of the law. The founders of thepiratebay.org are awaiting their jail sentence and the founders of isohunt.com and btjunkie.org are living free with no worries from the law.

I’m missing something here. They seem to be claiming that because no-one has yet prosecuted one lot of criminals, another lot should also be allowed to go free?

However you feel about this campaign, that seems like a very stupid argument.

@17 Yes, I preferred the more minimalist style. This one sounds like it’s written by a teenager trying too hard to seem ominous.
IamInnocent

“We are focusing all our eyes on your multiple organizations.”

…which must put quite a strain of their eyesight, hence the eye patch.
Anonymous

Anonymous is trying too hard.

Besides this, they have launched on several crusades in the past few weeks, most notably trying to beat Ashton Kutcher and CNN to the one million get on twitter. Besides, Anonymous isn’t really known for its attention span; I mean, Chanology is pretty much dead at this point.
Anonymous

Video is down? Mirror?
BlackPanda

I would be fascinated to know about this “$cientology being driven into bankruptcy” claim, which sounds like utter nonsense to me, since there have been a number of new “churches” spring up in my hood lately, and I’ve campaigned to try to have them eliminated from a market.
ptsd

Some of you have suggested that others should have clicked the link embedded in the sentence “having driven the Church of Scientology into bankruptcy” and that by doing so we would have learned that it was meant as sarcasm.

A very cleaver suggestion, indeed.

… If it weren’t for the fact that the author of this article edited the link into the sentence at a later stage!
Cory Doctorow

25: Ample evidence for the bankruptcy of the Co$ can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm
Anonymous

Clip removed, war over?
Anonymous

Cory, just read Overclocked – very very nice, if I may say.
Its a shame more of the people at boing boing (judging from your comments section, and your article’s tone) have such little faith in Anonymous. There is much potential there. Just remember, Anonymous is not your personal army.
EyeSpy Guy

Anonymous talks a lot of smack, to be sure, but if you take 4chan at face value, the joke is on you.

Many to many communication is a new thing under the sun, and the social experiment that is 4chan is interesting to say the least. One thing is very sure, you can’t tell Anonymous what to do, none the less, even without leaders, Anonymous is a social force.
Anonymous

Ha, because of all the anonymous posting in this thread, there’s no proper way to reference earlier comments; you can’t point to them by name and the numbering changes as new comments get approved.
MarkHB

Am I the only one who finds it blisteringly ironic that the video’s been pulled from YouTube?

Ho hum.
OddWorld

Love the wiki link.
krosebud84

Seriously!? @20 and @25, do you people not RTFA, click the link in the article about scientology bankruptcy, or read the comment thread before you post a comment?
Anonymous

Cut 20 and 25 a break. They’re probably Scientologists who believe everything they are told, refusing to look deeper for fear that they’ll discover the truth. :)
Anonymous

@69: DUUUUUUUUUUde!
Anonymous

@55 You’re confusing us with Fox News.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)#KTTV_Fox_11_news_report
Anonymous

I really wish Cory’s citation didn’t link to the Wikipedia…when Anonymous decided to target Scientology, I thought “Finally, they’ll actually do some good,” but aside from the protests (which admittedly were awesome) and maybe some light DDOSing, they haven’t done shit.
Anonymous

wow, the link is broken.
Anonymous

People fail to click links ITT.

Also,

We are Anonymous.
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.
Halloween Jack

No doubt Alan Moore is just thrilled to bits about V being used as a mascot for people who are willing to fight for their right to download a free copy of Anal Rampage 29.
ill lich

I have to admit, that wiki link for Scientology/bankruptcy made me laugh. I am sick of using “LOL”, but I did indeed laugh out loud.
Anonymous

I am an anon, and I approve this new war.
Anonymous

We are legion
ubernym

@30 (Halloween Jack)

A straw man and an ad hominem attack in one sentence? I’m impressed.
Xenu

This is the tip of the iceberg. When corporations control the courts, the people will begin to overthrow their power by any means necessary.
Takuan

the RIAA posted it.
WhyBother

Now the question remains: how long before Anon declares war on OtherAnon because he just can’t shut up. I think moot is getting tired of all the calls from reporters playing catch-up and asking him to explain “this organization, Anonymous.”

@30: Supposedly, he actually got quite a kick out of it. I have a feeling any reference to Anal Rampage 29 would only heighten his enjoyment.
Uncle_Max

“we can ban together”

Well sometimes I kick people from my torrents, if that’s what they mean.
The Unusual Suspect

EyeSpy Guy has it right.

Your problem is that you are expecting Anonymous to behave either like a group or like an individual, when in fact, Anonymous is neither. Anonymous is a body of ordered anarchy, which arose from an experiment in many-to-many interaction.

So while it’ a mistake to take Anonymous seriously, it’s also a mistake to not take Anonymous seriously.
Anonymous

I am an anon. And by that, I mean I’m a 15-year-old loner with no social skills who has no chance getting laid sitting in my mom’s basement, all while using pre-packaged scripts someone else made to h4xx0r into other people’s websites, so I can claim this feat for Anonymous.

I do this sort of thing as self-justification for why I go to /b/ in the first place.

(Most of that was actually true, too.)
Anonymous

Oh, awesome.

So now “Anonymous” has been co-opted and is being used by political groups. Good to know.

For those that are wondering, this has nothing to do with the original Anonymous group, and the kids that started and participated in the protests against Scientology don’t know or care about this, and they certainly don’t use the Pirate Bay for their torrenting since it isn’t as reliable as private trackers.

Let’s just chalk this one up to more internet douche-bags trying to use 4chan’s popularity for profit & political purposes and move on.
Anonymous

this is the kind of ‘activism’ i can get behind.

i like the militant tone =D
Antinous / Moderator

“It is not about going against your principles as you obviously have none.”

Heh.
Pantograph

@Halloween Jack #30

ZOMG Torrent pl0x!!!
Anonymous

“It is about Justice, true justice that only a member of our organization can see.”

Well, that’s awesome. We’ve all been doing it wrong all these thousands of years.

If Anonymous of “an hero” fame is the path of true justice, we are in so much trouble you can’t say it on tv before 9pm.
Stumpadoodle

The Scientology protests were for the wrong reasons (mostly psychological, on behalf of its [mostly underage] supporters) but they still managed to accomplish something, in a roundabout way. They brought the cult’s operations and existence into the light of widespread scrutiny for the first time in a while, if by no other means than causing enough trouble to get media coverage.

This is just stupid. It is, once again, for the wrong reasons…except this time even the initial pretenses to protest are silly. You want to punish the copyright enforcers for being biased in their lawsuit filing? Really? Are you serious?

There are many reasons to go after the greedy media corps, but that is not even close to being one of them.

Shame.
blueelm

“Where then am I supposed to look for the “value of 4chan” ? And sorry, if you the racism and homophobia is supposed to be a “joke” then the “joke” is on them, not me.”

It isn’t a joke until you get offended. It is free speech in action. You assume a bunch of racists, misogynists, and homophobes speak for everyone. They speak for themsleves. Normally they don’t get to. Perhaps that level of freedom wouldn’t work on the whole of society, but there’s some value to having it in some places. There are more people on the board than you are understanding, and some contribute in different ways. No one really ever knows if that script was written by a gay or a girl. No one really cares.
ab5tract

@53

Where then am I supposed to look for the “value of 4chan” ? And sorry, if you the racism and homophobia is supposed to be a “joke” then the “joke” is on them, not me.

Granted, I think the dosage discussions at 420chan are interesting and perhaps useful, but I’d temper that with moderated discussions like erowid any day.
Anonymous

Justice is on its way! But first, let’s see if we can post goatse pics to some n00b’s facebook….
ab5tract

@53

Also, I think it is total bullsht for some random group of idiots to take an important tool of discourse (“Anonymous”) and then associate it with bomb threats at football games.

Yeah, the jokes on me because I don’t find these turds to be funny :/
f sharp a sharp infinity

Is this a new hyperbole meme I missed?

“Clearly your unprincipled cabal must be broken down by our armies, McDonalds, because when I got home my fries were HALF FULL.”

I mean, boo to to the copyrightwing and all, but perhaps Anonymous needs to chill a bit?
Anonymous

I am an anon, and I approve.
Anonymous

It’s more lame because anyone who was anything other than a bandwagon loser is gone. Anonymous is just a bunch of lonely morons who have nothing other than DDOSing webservers to make them feel like they are part of something.

The creative people have moved on to other things.
Noah_J

this is so much worse written than the anonymous message to scientology.
tuckels

#9 Yeah, it was lame. The mention of rules 1 & 2 ruined for me.
Daemon

Hmm. Not quite up to their old standards…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ1qi9gz7UU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0WCLKzDFpI
Anonymous

“Anonymous, having driven the Church of Scientology into bankruptcy (…)”
Really?
ianm

>”Anonymous, having driven the Church of Scientology into bankruptcy (…)”
Really?

yes, please do elaborate – this is news to me. The big Scientology building on Younge St. in Downtown Toronto was quite busy and fully operational when I strolled bye a couple of weeks ago.
guernican

Just as a point of interest, if whoever pulls these announcements together needs someone to correct their English and brush up the flow of their rhetoric, my daily rates are quite reasonable.

If you need to contact me, just hack my details out of the Boing Boing user list.