Hacker Group Attacks RIAA, Department of Justice Websites

AP Photo

The hacker group Anonymous has taken credit for disabling the websites of the Department of Justice, the RIAA, Universal Music Group and others in the wake of the file-sharing site Megaupload being shut down yesterday.

"It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org," Anonymous operative Barrett Brown reportedly told British website RT yesterday. @AnonOps later announced "Recording Industry Association of America - Department of Justice - Universal Music - all TT, all TANGO DOWN. " in a tweet, declaring the action to be the largest attack ever by Anonymous.

@YourAnonNews, another Twitter associated with the hacker movement, wrote, "Let's just say, for #SOPA supporters their #SOPAblackout is today," referring to Wednesday's protest, in which several sites including Wikipedia shut down as a response to the SOPA and PIPA bills in Congress.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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