Arabian Anti-Piracy Alliance Pwned by Hackers

**Time-Traveller** · 01-13-2009, 04:46 AM

Arabian Anti-Piracy Alliance Pwned by Hackers
Written by Ernesto on January 13, 2009

The website of the Arabian Anti-Piracy Alliance, which represents the MPAA and a wide range of copyright holders in the Middle East, has been defaced by hackers. The entire news section was wiped out a week ago, and it hasn’t recovered since. It seems like this anti-piracy outfit doesn’t even visit its own site.

The Arabian Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAA) was founded in 1996 by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), and has turned itself into a profitable business since. In 2007 the company even received a nomination for the prestigious Lloyds TSB Small Business of the Year Award, but unfortunately for them they didn’t win.

The outfit sees itself liaising with the authorities, tipping them off and assisting in raids. Scott Butler, the CEO of the company who’s obviously from the U.S judging from his accent, said in a radio interview last year that his company assists in hundreds of raids a month.

Butler proudly added that, contrary to the situation in the U.S, everyone they catch violating copyrights in the United Arab Emirates goes to jail. “Amazingly, every single copyright case within United Arab Emirates resulted in imprisonment,” he said.

While the AAA might do a good job at protecting the intellectual property of their clients, preventing their own website from being hacked seems to be a real challenge. For days now, the news section of the site has been stripped of all its content, displaying the following message: “hacked by ashiyane security team”.

When it comes to securing websites, anti-piracy outfits seem to fail time and time again. Last year, the RIAA website got hacked, and the IFPI and a Lithuanian anti-piracy outfit both lost their domain names to BitTorrent sites after they failed to renew their registrations. Perhaps they should consider investing a few of their hard earned dollars in a proper sysop.

In the meantime, perhaps the Arabian Anti-Piracy Alliance should consider checking their own site every now and again.

Don't you just love epic failure on this scale