You know, in this post-OiNK world, music fans can’t be too careful when it comes to picking a new BitTorrent tracker. That’s why when I woke up this morning I was fully convinced that that RIAA had shut down What.cd?, one of the two biggest trackers comprised of former OiNK users (the other being Waffles). It seems someone is out to “get” What.cd? for whatever reason, subjecting the site and its users to SQL attacks, DDoS attacks, general mischief, etc.
Alas, the e-mail I got from the RIAA was just from some punk kid in the UK. Dork.
So here’s the e-mail in its entirety:
Dear registered user of the site What.cd,
We have recently been investigating the activities of the users of the
site http://www.what.cd/ and we have found that this site exists for the
sole purpose of music piracy.Pirating music is a criminal offence and we believe it should be obvious
to you that the results outweigh the benefits – hard working artists
won’t be rewarded for their work and will stop producing music,
ultimately leading to a severely reduced selection of music both in the
shops and for download.The RIAA had hoped that the disabling by the police of the large illegal
music site, Oink.cd, would stop a lot of people from engaging in piracy,
as they don’t want to be seen as criminals. However, this appears to
not be the case, as two large new sites have sprung up in its place.This email is the final warning to all of you who were members of
Oink.cd and are current members of What.cd. If we find you to be
committing any more criminal acts of piracy then we will have to press
charges against you, as representatives of the major record companies of
America.Yours Faithfully,
The RIAA
Then I logged into What.cd? to see what’s up and was greeted by some Watergate-like piece of investigative journalism. It turns out the kid responsible for the hacks and phony RIAA e-mails is a member of the site and is a total jerk. At 14-years-old, Peter Cole must have nothing better to do than to prove his “1227” skills (“1227” is the new “1337”) against some silly music site.
A whole lotta grief caused by one rogue user. For shame.