In February 2004, online protesters against reforms in copyright law violated EMI's copyright of Jay-Z's Black Album by mass-distributing MP3s of a remixed 'mashup' version of the album. They called this The Grey Album, and copies are still circulating the networks to this day despite the record company's protestations.

This sort of action has become well-known over the years as 'electronic civil disobedience', or ECD, in which activists use the potentials of the internet to work against practices or businesses they disagree with.

Perhaps the most famous example of ECD is the DDoS – distributed denial of service attack. This is where hundreds of thousands of users gather to work against a specific site – also known as a 'virtual sit-in'. The effect of so many users trying to access a website repeatedly can be devastating, often rendering the site completely inaccessible – hence the name 'denial of service’.

Now that so much business is carried out online, electronic civil disobedience can be a mighty sting in the tail of corporate Goliaths. And one thing's for certain, wily hackers are finding new ways of making it hurt every day.