Upon hearing of the shutdown of Megaupload, members of the hacking group Anonymous responded by saying, “Well, yes, there may have been some unlicensed material on there so it’s best that the government protect the copyright holders and take bold international action.”

No, I’m kidding, Anonymous went bananas and launched distributed denial of service attacks on just about any target they could think of. The Department of Justice’s site was down for a few hours yesterday afternoon as was the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America’s site. The MPAA and its president, former senator Chris Dodd, have been some of the most outspoken supporters of SOPA and PIPA and among the loudest in calls for intense policing of potential copyright violators.