REVOLVER:ANONYMOUS terror groups, legitimate targets, reprisals, counter-reprisals – it's all kicking off in cyberspace between the worlds of music and film and sites that enable file-sharing. This week's electronic handbags began when the US music industry body (RIAA) and the film industry body (MPAA) decided to fight with fire with fire.

An Indian software company, Aiplex, has said it was hired by the music and film organisations to launch cyber attacks on sites that host pirated music and film, using DDos (distributed denial-of- service) attacks – wherein a website is so overloaded by requests that it crashes and has to go offline.

It’s a common enough tactic – other retaliatory actions include planting viruses, nasty spyware and so on in the pirate sites. But certain self-styled “net freedom fighters” have been responding in kind, and in the past few days the RIAA, MPAA and BPI (British Phonographic Society) websites have all had to go temporarily offline following similar cyber attacks.

Details of these counter-attacks were posted on the 4chan message board. “We brought them down the same way they brought down The Pirate Bay, with a Distributed Denial of Service. They hired Aiplex, who has been taken care of as well. They struck first, we struck harder,” says a 4chan post. Those behind the attacks say they will continue with tit-for-tat actions if pirate sites continue to be attacked.

The language and methods have echoes of so many real-life conflicts: the “state-sanctioned” action, the “paramilitary” reprisal, the threats and counter-threats. Thankfully, no human harm is caused. It’s all just a minor inconvenience for users of the sites in question – but it’s proof again that this “war” against piracy is unwinnable.

But was a line crossed when, in Australia earlier this year, government websites (carrying necessary and important information) were blocked in protest at the Australian government’s plans to introduce internet filters to protect against pornography and piracy?

And what happens if this escalates? According to one internet security expert the people who leave messages on 4chan about their DDos actions can never be stopped: “How do you stop the collective manpower of an entire internet community? You can seize equipment, hunt down the originators of the attack, but this is a group who have prided themselves in remaining anonymous, and have done so very well through the power of the internet.”

This is why there is so much riding on Google’s new music service and why the company is so keen to get the deal signed by all concerned parties.

Google Music is potentially a please-all solution (if file sharers jump aboard the all-you-can-eat subscription model, that is). The potentially game-changing idea will be a cloud-based service containing an iTunes-style download store alongside a “storage locker” that users can keep their music in and stream it from anywhere – as well as being able to download it to any internet-connected device. Cloud, streaming, ownership – it sounds perfect. No nonsense involving downloading and uploading to different devices.

But Google is looking for a 50-50 split with the rights holders (the labels), and that’s never going to happen. Plus, the publishers of the copyright work will be on about 10 per cent – and whose 50 per cent does that come out of?

Apart from the dosh, the big issue on the table is whether or not the rights holders will (as predicted) only sign up to Google Music if the company agrees not to host sites that hold pirated material, as has long been demanded by record labels and film studios.

This is the first time an ISP has entered the music game, and for that reason alone it is hugely significant. Everything is on the table, and this is a real chance to eradicate the legal/illegal download divide. However, both Google and the music industry are carrying “baggage” and working through “issues”. It makes Chantelle and Preston seem straightforward.

bboyd@irishtimes.com