The alphabet boys are doing their best this year to shut down illegal music downloading sites as already evidence by the raid on the owner of OiNK. In recent days, questions have been circulating the net after popular downloading site Albumbase.com is showing a Service Unavailable message. The rumor is that the RIAA and even FBI have shut down albumbase or are at least investigating which has caused the owners of the site to “temporarily shut down” operation.

Apparently, the former owner of Albumbase, who resides in England, was raided which allowed the English alphabet boys to figure out who the new owners are, who reside in Seattle, and that info was turned over to the American alphabet soup squad. Whether this is true or not, we cannot confirm. We can confirm, however, Albumbase is currently owned by a company called Tatto, whose CEO Lin Miao, was named Business Week’s Best Entrepreneur Under 25.

If these rumors are true, it would certainly put a dent in downloading piracy as Albumbase as well as many other sites work by providing “off-server” links such as through file sharing sites to provide the goods. If the alphabet boys have made a case against such sites this would likely cause many to shut down.

I personally don’t think they have a case as the links are “off-server” and therefore they are not actually providing the download, merely providing the link to the download. If anything, the file sharing sites will likely be hit first. I think we’ll see Albumbase return albeit on a server in Antarctica.

PS. Guys stop snitchen! The next hot album site that comes up, please don’t tell anyone!