The United States Trade Representative has once again published its list of notorious markets, giving piracy yet another publicity boost.
In its 2017 Global Piracy Report, Muso, a well-funded British piracy-tracking startup, tracked around 300 billion visits to piracy sites.
Then, last year, the startup published a surprising update. Thanks to the rise of streaming platforms, people now pirate less.
In fact, music piracy – which saw the most notable decline – plummeted 34% year-over-year. Streaming music platforms may have actually curbed YouTube stream-ripping, a popular form of music piracy.
That’s the good news. Now, here’s the bad news.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) has once again inadvertently given a major boost to global piracy.
The Most Notorious Piracy Hubs in the World, by the USTR.
As stated earlier, the USTR has published its annual Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property and Review of Notorious Markets for Piracy and Counterfeiting Report.
The 2019 Special 301 Report identifies 36 countries which don’t adequately or effectively protect IP rights.
Countries listed on the Priority Watch List include Algeria, Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
Countries on the normal Watch List include Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Greece, Guatemala, Jamaica, Lebanon, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Romania, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
The 2019 Notorious Markets Report starts off listing recent anti-piracy advancements.
Thanks to the help of enforcement officials abroad, the American government has taken successful action against 123movies and gomovies. Authorities have also continued taking action against nefarious stream-rippers following the 2016 closure of YouTube-MP3, though the RIAA recently been defeated in U.S. court by FLVTO.biz owner Tofig Kurbanov.
In addition, authorities have now set their sights on illegal internet protocol television (IPTV) providers. This includes the successful closure of FAB TV.
Yet, many nefarious markets remain online. Unlike its EU counterpart, the USTR has once again lumped all infringing sites together. This includes stream-ripping sites, cyberlockers, direct MP3 downloads, illegal TV/movie sites, BitTorrent sites, and more.
Websites listed under Online Markets include:
- Stream-Rippers – FLVTO / 2Conv
- Direct MP3 Downloads – MP3juices, MP3VA, NewAlbumReleases
- BitTorrent – Torrentz2, Rarbg, The Pirate Bay
- Cyberlockers – 1Fichier, Chomikuj, Openload, Rapidgator/RUTracker/Seasonvar, TurboBit, Uploaded, UpToBox
- Hosting Providers – FlokiNET
- TV/Movie Streamers – Fmovies, Indoxx1, Kinogo, PelisPedia, TVPlus/TVBrowser/Kuaikan
- Online Marketplaces / E-Commerce Sites / Social Media – Bukalapak, Carousell, DHgate, Pinduoduo, Shopee, Taobao, Tokopedia, VK
- Sports Piracy – Beoutq
- e-Book/Journals Downloads – Sci-Hub/LibGen
- Illegal Gaming Servers – Firestorm-Severs/Warmane
- Online Pharmaceuticals – Hosting Concepts B.V.
- Online Video Game Cheats – MPGH
You can view the complete report below.
Featured image by Manuel Strehl (CC by 3.0).
An alternate name for that list of pirate sites could be “List of platforms you can use for your music after Article 13 forces Bandcamp to remove it”.
Wow flov is in The runnings coincidentally during a case against it one of the USTRs paymast-Some very fine gentlemen in a rather litigious organization happen to also be in as well!
How utterly coincidental and random. As if by god and chance.