In its second “Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets”, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has listed more than a dozen websites and physical markets which are reportedly involved in piracy and counterfeiting.
The list is based solely on input from lobby groups including the RIAA and MPAA, who submitted their recommendations a few weeks ago. While the USTR admits that the list is not meant to reflect legal violations, the websites mentioned in the report “merit further investigation” for their alleged infringing behavior.
“These are marketplaces that have been the subject of enforcement action or that may merit further investigation for possible intellectual property rights infringements. The scale and popularity of these markets can cause economic harm to U.S. and other IP right holders,” the report reads.
As in previous reports, the largest category of allegedly infringing sites are BitTorrent related. The USTR points out that BitTorrent can also be used for lawful purposes, but it lists The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, BTJunkie, Kat.ph and Torrentz.eu as examples of possibly unlawful sites.
“Despite the criminal conviction of its founders, the Sweden-based ThePirateBay continues to facilitate the download of unauthorized content. ThePirateBay recently ranked among the top 100 websites in both global and U.S. traffic, according to Alexa.com,” the report explains TPB’s inclusion.
Aside from the BitTorrent indexes and search engines above, USTR also lists several BitTorrent trackers that may be investigated further. The report highlights the Russian based Rutracker, Demonoid, and the Bulgarian tracker Zamunda.
The USTR also zooms in on two of the world’s largest file-hosting services, Megaupload and Putlocker. This pushes Megaupload into the spotlight for the second time this month, after a public endorsement by a wide range of celebrity stars resulted in a YouTube takedown scandal and a subsequent lawsuit last week.
According to the USTR, Megaupload is highlighted as an alleged piracy haven because it “allows for the unauthorized distribution of protected content through subscriptions and reward schemes to popular uploaders.”
Finally, USTR’s decision to include the Russian Facebook competitor Vkontakte is also noteworthy. Not only because it’s a social network, but also because VKontakte spokesman Vladislav Tsypluhin recently noted that the company’s copyright problems are in the past after a deal was made with the USTR.
“We have an arrangement with the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, they will check our copyright compliance, and then we will be excluded from the list of pirate sites,” Tsypluhin said.
The RIAA and MPAA were quick to praise the USTR for their contribution. However, the list raises questions, as it brands businesses as rogue piracy havens solely based on input from entertainment industry lobby groups. Even sites that have cooperated with the USTR for months remain highlighted.
This is worrying, not least because the U.S. Government will grant these lobbying groups more control over the internet if the SOPA and PIPA bills pass next year.
