The Anonymous hacktivist collective temporarily took down the website of Warner Bros Records with a distributed denial of service attack yesterday.

According to unconfirmed reports, the group was also attempting to download Warner Bros emails and archived material.

Anonymous launched the attack to protest against Warner Bros' involvement in a US$75 trillion lawsuit against file sharing company Limewire.

Thirteen other recording studios were involved in the lawsuit for a sum more than five times the GDP of the United States.

Anonymous' attack on Warner Bros was part "Operation Payback" against various efforts to take down file sharing sites.

Earlier this month, Anonymous called for DDoS attacks on the New Zealand Government’s Department of Internal Affairs website to protest against a voluntary internet filtering scheme that most major ISPs have now joined.

The hacktivists have also hit government websites in Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Yemen and Italy, as well as corporate sites, like those of Visa and Mastercard after they refused to process payments for Wikileaks.

Anonymous issued the following statement to explain its attack: