The RIAA has submitted its annual list of "notorious" music piracy websites to the U.S. Government. The report his heavily populated with YouTube MP3 ripping sites, but also includes many the usual suspects, including The Pirate Bay and Rapidgator.
Stream-Ripping Sites
– Mp3juices.cc
– Convert2mp3.net
– Savefrom.net
– Ytmp3.cc
– Convertmp3.io
– Flvto.biz
– 2conv.com.
Search-and-Download Sites
– Newalbumreleases.net
– Rnbxclusive.top
– DNJ.to
BitTorrent Indexing and Tracker Sites
– Thepiratebay.org
– Torrentdownloads.me
– Rarbg.to
– 1337x.to
Cyberlockers
– 4shared.com
– Uploaded.net
– Zippyshare.com
– Rapidgator.net
– Dopefile.pk
– Chomikuj.pl
Unlicensed Pay-for-Download Sites
– Mp3va.com
– Mp3fiesta.com
Elizabeth Kendall,
Acting Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Innovation and Intellectual Property
Office of the United States Trade Representative
600 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20508
In re: Docket No. USTR-2017-0015
Dear Ms. Kendall:
Attached please find RIAA’s submission in response to your request for comments
identifying Internet and physical markets based outside the United States that should be
included in forthcoming Notorious Markets List (List). The online and physical markets
identified in our comments are harming American creators, businesses, and the American
economy. We were pleased that last year’s Notorious Markets review included stream ripping
as an issue of special focus. Our submission this year highlights the growing complexity of this
problem.
The U.S. music industry is highly dependent on the Internet and, in turn fuels various social
media, e-commerce services and similar internet companies, as well as mobile and broadband
penetration generally. In the first half of 2017, approximately 80% of U.S. record label
revenue came from a wide array of digital sources, with 62% of our revenue coming from
digital streaming sources. The growth in streaming and digital services has resulted in a
major step in our economic recovery, with a 17% year over year growth in retail revenues
in the first half of 2017.
Our members continue to invest heavily in discovering, nurturing
and promoting artists. In 2015, record labels invested over $4.5 billion globally in such
activities. Today, RIAA members license their music globally, and more than 400 licensed
music platforms operate around the world, with new services added constantly. This
contributes significantly to the U.S. digital trade services surplus.
While this recovery is promising, it is fragile, and continues to be threatened by online
marketplaces that infringe our members’ music, as well as by sales of counterfeit products
over ecommerce platforms, outdated and abused laws, and lack of proper enforcement
mechanisms.
In this submission, we have identified some of the major online actors that threaten our
industry’s recovery and jeopardize the U.S. competitive advantage in digital trade. Simply
put, the prosperity of the music industry and America’s cultural production, which
contributes significantly to the U.S. services trade surplus, is greatly undermined by
distortions in the marketplace that flow from what is essentially illegal trafficking in stolen
goods – our sound recordings. The weight of the academic literature acknowledges that
such online pirate services cause significant economic harm to the music industry.
In addition, we have also identified physical markets that are flooding eCommerce
platforms with high quality counterfeit CDs that unwitting buyers are purchasing at full
retail price. These counterfeits result in a one-for-one displacement of legitimate sales.
We hope you find this information useful, and we look forward to continuing to work with
the U.S. government to find solutions to these problems.
Sincerely yours,
George York
Senior Vice President, International Policy
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
2017 SPECIAL 301 OUT-OF-CYCLE REVIEW OF NOTORIOUS MARKETS
ONLINE MARKETPLACES
he following is a list of online markets based outside the United States that engage in the
unlicensed sale, streaming and/or distribution/downloading of sound recordings that
significantly damage the rights of U.S. companies that we request to be included on the 2017
Notorious Markets List.
These services harm U.S. artists, record labels, and music publishing companies by (i)
disseminating music without authorization and without providing any compensation to the
creators and owners of the music, and (ii) artificially distorting the market value of the
music, thereby reducing the compensation to the creators and owners from licensed
services. The cost of such music piracy is potentially enormous. One recent study
quantified the commercial value of music digital piracy in 2015 at $29 billion worldwide,
and estimated that it could grow to $53-$117 billion in 2022
1
As noted in that study, the
weight of academic research notes that this piracy imposes significant economic harm on
legitimate music revenues.
2
Many of the services in this year’s submission unfortunately have been included in the
past. However, this year several major services have been removed, particularly in two key
areas.
First, there has been a significant turnover with respect to sites engaged in stream-ripping,
an area of piracy that the USTR highlighted in last year’s Notorious Market Report. The
most popular YouTube ripping site, youtube-mp3.org, based in Germany and included in
last year’s list of notorious market, recently shut down in response to a civil action brought
by major record labels. In addition, either following the complaint filed against youtube mp3.org
or following the stipulated judgement against youtube-mp3.org, several other
illegal stream ripping services named in our filing last year no longer permit the conversion
and download of music videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, several other stream-ripping
sites have “doubled down” and carry on in this illegal behavior, continuing to make this
form of theft a major concern for the music industry.
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