Hackers broke into the RIAA site yesterday and committed mischief:

The Recording Industry Association of America was the victim of a hack Wednesday, forcing network administrators to shut down the site and look for the hole in its Web server.

....But even if and when the organization does find out what happened, RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy told internetnews.com he wouldn't issue any information about the defacement.

"All I can tell you is there's a problem with our site that we are fixing," Lamy said. "It should be back up shortly."

Only the home page was defaced, as far as officals can tell, though the links pointed to existing RIAA.org Web pages. The defaced site featured such tidbits as "Inside the RIAA with Eric Cartman" — the best-known character from the irreverent Comedy Central cartoon "South Park" — and "Piracy can be beneficial to the music industry" — an acerbic touch flung in the face of the biggest opponent to digital music piracy.

Also, a link entitled "Where can I find information on giant monkeys?" took readers to the biography page of Hilary Rosen, RIAA chief executive officer.