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Kim Dotcom: Are such Internet sensations pirates or hactivists?

Copyright law and its enforcement have dominated the news lately, first with the Internet blackout protests against SOPA, and more recently with the arrest of Kim Dotcom in New Zealand. Here are five international file-share players who have been targets of copyright enforcement.

4chan and Anonymous

  • By Arthur Bright Correspondent

One of the more influential players in the online file-sharing world isn't a service at all, but rather the amorphous society of hackers and netizens that call the website 4chan home.  Although 4chan was originally launched as a discussion board focused on images, it has evolved into a crucible of Internet culture, responsible for social trends and movements ranging from the lolcats meme to the online protest group Anonymous.

Copyright infringement isn't a forefront issue for the 4chan community or Anonymous, but it has stirred the 4chan community to action – usually in the form of online vandalism – in the past.  In May 2009, users of the YouTube video-sharing site flooded it with pornographic videos in an alleged 4chan-organized attack.  One user told the BBC that "I did it because YouTube keeps deleting music. It was part of a 4chan raid." (YouTube deletes music and other copyrighted material if the copyright owner complains, in compliance with US copyright law.)

In Sept. 2010, 4chan organized another attack after the MPAA and RIAA hired an Internet security firm to launch cyberattacks on The Pirate Bay in an effort to shut it down.  In response, Anonymous and 4chan members brought down the websites of the MPAA, RIAA, and the security firm, crashing them by essentially bombarding them with so many page requests that the websites couldn't function.

But despite the high-profile attacks that 4chan and Anonymous have perpetrated, authorities have had limited success tracking them down.  And while 4chan's attentions are capricious, the community remains a factor that copyright enforcement officials have to consider.

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Mark Sappenfield
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