Statements en communicatie omtrent Operation Payback

To whom it may concern;

This is to inform you that we, Anonymous, have for the last few days been involved in an Operation called „Payback is a Bitch”. This was begun in retaliation for denial of service attacks perpetrated by AIPLEX against The Pirate Bay's servers on behalf of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America). Anonymous has successfully engaged in its own DDoS against AIPLEX's servers and has expanded its operations against the MPAA and the RIAA, which at the time of writing were also unreachable.

Anonymous is sick and tired of these corporations seeking to control the internet in their pursuit of profit. Anonymous cannot sit by and do nothing while these organizations stifle the spread of ideas and attack those who wish to exercise their rights to share with others. Anonymous will not just watch while others are attacked. Their servers have been shut down and they will remain so for as long as there is no true freedom of information and data. These successful attacks on MPAA and RIAA's servers shall continue. An injury to one is an injury to all.

Anonymous,
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget

To whom it concerns,

Over the past years, we have borne witness to a technological revolution. The individual has become free, in the most extreme anarchistic sense, to share ideas. Some of these ideas are shared behind proxies, darknets, or similar „closed doors”. Nevertheless, the ideas are out there. There have been similar instances of such revolutions of the mind. Their effects on society are inestimably great. As in past times with the invention of the printing press, so it is today that the people embrace this revolution, this new „anarchy” of freedom to share, while their autocratic rulers seek to crush this freedom.

In spite of censorship in the form of copyright law and other restrictions, the people have succeeded in distributing content to the poor, the underprivileged and the oppressed. The most numerous pirates are Chinese, as content filters restrict a vast amount of information in their country. Pirates are also numerous among the poor, as this demographic cannot afford things like college books or entertainment. Indeed, while often ignored by those interested only in bread and circuses, a vast amount of educational literature is available to the everyday pirate online. Piracy democratizes knowledge and makes education affordable.

History repeats itself. There was a time when powers that be attempted to silence the printing press, the blank cassette and the recordable CD. All of these previous attempts at censorship have failed, and future attempts of this nature are doomed to failure. Indeed, the sequestration of human knowledge for the benefit of extremist capitalism is treason against the whole of humanity. All should have the right to listen to a melody, experience a plot and learn from the aggregate of human knowledge available online.

The man on the street already knows this. He knows it when he illegally¹⁾ gives his unused software to a friend or acquaintance. He knows it when he gives that old college book to a person in need. However, he also knows that something is wrong.

He knows that something is wrong when the artwork of little girls is raped in the name of copyright²⁾. He knows that something is wrong when solicitors use copyright to blackmail thousands of people sharing information³⁾. He knows that something is wrong when corrupt organizations seeking to stem the free flow of information lie through their teeth, produce false documents and spread misinformation about their opponents (We DID NOT attack the Pirate Party, we ARE NOT affiliated with anti-scientology activism, and The Pirate Bay has not organized this).

He know that it is not right when his leaders inexplicably support massive capitalist enterprises over the majority opinion of their own people⁴⁾. He know they are wrong when they use illegal means to get what they want, while hypocritically deprecating their opponents for doing the same⁵⁾.

If one were to pursue the propaganda of various community-reputable organizations such as…

• The Motion Picture Association of America [MPAA]
• The Recording Industry Association of America [RIAA]
• The British Phonographic Industry [BPI]
• The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft [AFACT]
• Stichting Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland [BREIN]

…They would come across many a morality play suggesting that, if they 'pirate' a film or an album, they are depriving a simple artist, actor or crewmember of their rightful wage. This worker won't be able to break even for their next lot of groceries because the pirate robbed them of their money.

Of course, these organizations carefully omit the fact that only a small percentage of the profits made by big media ever make it to those who actually produce it. Do they ever disclose how small of a percentage most script writers, novelists, etc., actually make? Of course not, and there is a reason why. Do these anti-piracy organizations truthfully disclose how much they receive in donations, and from whom? Of course not, and there is a reason for this also.

In the end, our DDoS efforts have been compared to waiting for a train⁶⁾ What must the people do to be heard? To what lengths must they go to have their pleads taken seriously? Must they to take to the streets with noose and handgun gun before those in power take notice?

You are forcing our hand by ignoring the voice of the people. In doing so, you bring the destruction of your iron grip of information ever closer. You have ignored the people, attacked the people and lied to the people. For this, you will be held accountable before the people, and you will be punished by them.

We will not stop.
We will not forget.
We will prevail.
We are anonymous.

Dear Operation:Payback,

We, the undersigned, call upon you to immediately cease your Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks and to instead seek out a legal method to express your frustration and disquiet with the copyright industry, and their perversions of copyright law for personal gain.

We understand, only too well, that, as a group, you feel the need to bring attention to this problem. We understand and share your frustration that rational arguments backed up by solid evidence are frequently ignored in favor of talking points based on slogans that have never been backed up with hard data. This frustration has led you to carry out a series of DDoS attacks against high profile websites belonging to various anti-piracy groups and government agencies, under the name of „Operation:Payback”.

What began as a counter-attack on Aiplex Software (the company hired to DDoS several websites that did not comply with take-down notices) later turned into a full-on assault against the RIAA, MPAA, and IFPI, among other groups and organizations that had nothing to do with the original purpose of Operation: Payback.

Operation: Payback needs to end. While it is certainly an indication that an increasing number of people are becoming frustrated with the way laws are being constantly re-written to kill our creative culture in the name of preserving profitability, its methods do more harm than good to the global effort.

By continuing Operation:Payback attacks, you will hamper those who promote copyright reform and curtailment of abuses of copyright, but who do so within the bounds of the law. Instead of being able to argue for legislative reform of copyright on its own merits, they will be accused of defending criminals and promoting lawlessness. It will be easier for legislators and the media to ignore the clear benefits of fair copyrights and free speech, in favor of clamoring for harsher legislation to „stop those pirates and hackers.”

Please help those of us who care about your freedoms, your rights and your liberty, and choose a more moderate and legal way.

Yours sincerely,

• United States Pirate Party
• Pirate Party of the United Kingdom

Despite there apparently being some agreement made with the „leaders” of Operation: Payback, whereby if you were to write to us requesting cessation of our activities we would stop, we refuse to halt our actions. Any individuals who may have made such an agreement with you were acting on their own behalf and may be regarded as rogue elements.

Members of your organizations, the Pirate Parties of the United States of America⁷⁾ and the United Kingdom⁸⁾ have recently made statements about Operation: Payback⁹⁾ With this statement we would like to make our stance on this issue clear.

• We reject the claims made by these Pirate Parties. However, we understand them. As political entities, they are governed by the laws of their jurisdictions. Civil disobedience is rarely appreciated by political parties.
• Anonymous and Operation Payback share values and goals -i.e. freedom of information, expression, and sharing - with the Pirate Parties, but we are absolutely independent entities.
• We will go on with our activities, despite the Pirate Parties of the United States of America and the United Kingdoms’ objections, unless we come up with more efficient ways to better achieve our common goals.
• We do not share your belief that what we are doing is illegal; what is illegal in one country may be legal in another. We would prefer if you stopped trying to brand us as criminals. The group has no single base and is not bound to any particular jurisdiction.
• The reason for this operation should not be forgotten. This operation was born directly out of rage against the blatant double standards of a system which is prepared to criminalize our DDoSing, but turn a total blind eye to the first shots which were fired, by AiPlex, against The Pirate Bay, in a “hired guns” deal with the media cartels RIAA and MPAA. If they are going to start a dirty war, they are not morally entitled to criticize anyone who uses their own weapons in retaliation. We haveexpli cit ly announced before that our movement was not only targeted at The Pirate Bay’s enemies, but all enemies of free speech, particularly internet neutrality, and we shall stay true to this cause.
• We are not concerned with legality, but with legitimacy. Those who decide our laws are the same people who decided that public copyright harassment, erosion of civil liberties and abominations of censorship such as COICA, ACTA, and the DEAct, are good and just things to enforce upon the populace. They do this whilst selectively enforcing their own laws when it comes to “official” organizations that take actions such as running a mass racketeering operation (knowingly suing thousands of individuals for infringement on bad evidence¹⁰⁾ or DDoSing sites that are contrary to their interests (AiPlex). We do not recognize their “authority” due to this rank hypocrisy.

Finally, we recognize and respect the work of Pirate Parties and wish them luck. We hope that you all continue your fight as we are continuing ours.

People who agree with our philosophy can come to irc://irc.anonops.net/operationpayback to help us fight against the corporate and the political machinery.

Yours respectfully, Operation Payback

Dear everybody,

In the past few days, the course of Operation: Payback has been confused and unclear. In this statement, all of us would like to clarify both the chaos and the result. We assume that everybody reading this statement is aware of Operation: Payback's history; if not, please see the links below for more information.

As earlier reported¹¹⁾, Operation: Payback is coordinated via a core group on IRC. In mid-November, the hosts of Operation:Payback suffered a lot of server crashes, DDoS attacks (it's unknown whether these were directed by anonymous trolls or by AiPlex, MPAA or related), IRC server switches and chaos. The core group suggested a wider field in which Operation: Payback would now operate: political proposals, a media awareness campaign, changing into a more legal operation, thus allowing the operation to attract more people with different methods. Still, visitor numbers kept dropping. We then realized that the website, tieve.tk, had been taken offline and blocked from re-registering. The resulting drop in users/visitors was misinterpreted [by command] as a lack of interest, fear of getting caught, or that people weren't willing to perform acts that might be illegal. At the same time, Slyck reported that Operation:Payback had ended¹²⁾, further spreading confusion.

In an interview on Tuesday, November 9th¹³⁾ , a number of Operation: Payback's core group members suggested that when the Pirate Parties requested that Operation: Payback stand down, it would be a suitable end for the vigilante rampage. This was taken into consideration by both sides but was kept confidential in order to avoid political accusations that the Pirate Parties were collaborating with Operation: Payback, which is most definitely not the case. Later, it turned out that not all members of the core group were represented and neither were the members in the main IRC channel.

On Friday, November 19th, the US Pirate Party released their open letter, calling for an immediate cessation of the DDoS attacks¹⁴⁾ People in the main IRC channel were made aware that the USPP's letter had been discussed in command before, and that this occurred without consulting the other members. As an answer, they drafted their own open response.

At that moment, it became clear that the views of command and the other members had drifted apart. Command made the same mistake as today's governments: once they're in their big seats, they think that everything that they decide is automatically approved by the people around them. To make matters worse, the draft response was released by the media before it was completed, leaving gaps and inconsistencies which completed the chaos.

The result of our mistakes is that various news agencies, blogs and affiliated sites decided that they could not take Operation: Payback seriously anymore. And they're right: how could an operation succeed if even its members can't agree on its actions? We all admit that we made mistakes. We've all helped to repair the damage. Now we are all in this together again. Our voice is now as one. We learned from our mistakes. The command group has been reformed, assuring that everyone has a voice. So now we must focus on the task at hand.

All of the recent events reflect that spirit of activism and reaffirm that Operation: Payback, is a decentralized movement. It will not be reduced to useless meetings and discussions about laws and superficial modifications. We believe that the final position is right and this is a sign that we have clear objectives and we are ready to continue fighting against the corruption of cartels and similar entities, in an effective manner.

This operation is not about legality, but about legitimacy. Although we started with payback against one company, we will continue payback for lawsuits and restrictions of our freedom to create and recreate. We continue to develop and adopt new methods to raise public awareness. As part of Operation: Payback, we share values and goals. We value freedom of information, expression and sharing. But we hate censorship, limitations and corporations that make their money off our backs. We will go on with our activities, despite the Pirate Party's wishes. We will not stop until the subject is discussed by equal forces. We have explicitly announced, and will continue to announce, that our movement was not only targeted at The Pirate Bay’s enemies, but all enemies of free speech, particularly Internet neutrality, and we shall stay true to this cause.

We recognize and respect the work of all the Pirate Parties and wish them luck. We hope that they all continue their fight as they think is right. And so will we fight, as we think is right. Come to irc://irc.anonops.net/operationpayback and join our discussion. Help us fight against the corporate and political machinery, or prove our methods wrong by finding alternate successful ways.

Kind regards, all of us.