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God forbid anyone incur the combined wrath of both The Pirate Bay and Anonymous.

The hacking collective is claiming responsibility for levelling a successful distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on the websites of Virgin Media.

Virgin became the first UK ISP to block its subscribers’ access to The Pirate Bay last week, following a High Court ruling that the Bay breaches record label copyrights and should be blocked by five such providers.

#Anonymous have just taken down #VirginMedia website again because of their involvement in the #Censorship of The Pirate Bay #TPB #OpTPB — Anonymous UK (@AnonUK) May 8, 2012

But The Pirate Bay does not appear to be on the same page as Anonymous. According to its Facebook page:

“We do NOT encourage these actions. We believe in the open and free internets (sic), where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us. “So don’t fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship.”

Virgin Media tells The Register:

“Our website, virginmedia.com, has been the subject of denial of service attacks so we took the site offline for a short period of time. We’re aware some groups are claiming the attacks are a result of the recent High Court order which requires ISPs to prevent access to The Pirate Bay. “As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders but we strongly believe that tackling the issue of copyright infringement needs compelling legal alternatives, giving consumers access to great content at the right price, to help change consumer behaviour.”