The Web site run by the Motion Picture Association of America, the lobbying arm of the major Hollywood studios, was temporarily brought down Saturday by pirates enraged by an escalation in anti-piracy efforts.
MPAA.org and the Web site of AiPlex Software, a company the MPAA hired to target sites where piracy was rampant, were incapacitated for much of the day, according to the piracy blog Torrentfreak.
"The MPAA is aware of the illegal attack and has taken measures to mitigate the effect of any denial-of-service attack," said an MPAA spokesman, noting the organization was able to get its site back online.
The attacks were declared on the message-board group 4chan, which is notorious as a hotbed for piracy activity. Their call to arms was prompted by a statement AiPlex made earlier in the month about stepping up its own efforts to counter torrent sites trafficking in copyright-infringing content.
