By James Murray
You may be wondering why Anonymous targeted Universal Music in their strike back against the US Justice Dept shutdown of Megaupload.
The online activists brought down the site universalmusic.com this morning, after file sharing website Megaupload was shut down and its founder Kim Schmitz arrested in Auckland.
Universal was targeted because they tried to get the website's theme song removed from YouTube earlier this month because it included contributions from artists they represent including Kanye West, P Diddy and will.i.am.
The well-known rappers had voluntarily contributed to the video because Megaupload's CEO is Swizz Beatz, a hip hop artist married to Alicia Keys.
Megaupload fired a lawsuit back at Universal for blocking distribution of their promotional video.
“We have never received any word that any artist has [individually] filed a take-down … [we have] legally binding agreements with the performers that appear in the video … They promised that they had the rights to enter into that agreement and it’s not interfering with any third-party rights," said a representative of Megaupload in the New York Post.
Previous to this Megaupload had filed another lawsuit against Universal after they complained the artists were under contract.
YouTube initially took the video down via its automated system and Kim Schmitz spoke to the TorrentFreak website.
“Those UMG criminals. They are sending illegitimate takedown notices for content they don’t own,” he told the website. “Dirty tricks in an effort to stop our massively successful viral campaign.”
“Mega owns everything in this video. And we have signed agreements with every featured artist for this campaign.
“UMG did something illegal and unfair by reporting Mega’s content to be infringing. They had no right to do that. We reserve our rights to take legal action. But we’d like to give them the opportunity to apologize.”
“UMG is such a rogue label,” Kim added, wholly appreciating the irony.
The YouTube video is currently available - to watch it click on the video tab above.
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