Web Case Losers Launch DDO$ Attack: Pay $3.75M Fine to Law Firm in Pennies

Updated: After their recent conviction in a criminal copyright prosecution in Sweden, owners of a well-known file-sharing website have reportedly come up with a plan to pay back a law firm that represented the music industry at trial in the Pirate Bay-related case.

"Either devilishly clever or absolutely boneheaded," writes the Guardian, the scheme calls for Pirate Bay fans to help pay a court-ordered fine of about $3.75 million to Danowsky & Partners in tiny increments of 12 cents or so.

By doing so, the plan is not only to swamp the law firm with Web payments but to hit the firm with hefty payment-processing fees supposedly charged by its bank, reports the United Kingdom newspaper. Dubbed a DDO$ attack, the scheme is another version of a so-called Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack used by Internet hackers to overwhelm a disfavored website with unwanted traffic.

"Wow. Talk about revenge," writes attorney Richard Koman in a ZDNet Government blog post about what he terms the "ingeniously evil plan."

Says Peter Danowsky in an e-mail to the ABA Journal: "It is sad that a law firm is attacked for doing its work. It is an attack on the fundamental values of the judicial system. We have reported the activities to the police. It is important that threats and harassment against a law firm are handled with immediate attention and seriousness. We trust that the police will deal with this matter in an appropriate way."

Related material:

New York Post: "Swedish Phish: Web Pirates Won't Pay Booty"

Register: "Pirate Bay guilty verdict: Now what?"

Blog Pirate: "Pirate Bay Founder Devises DDo$ Attack"

Last updated on May 14 to add comment from Peter Danowsky.