These submissions help to guide the U.S. Government’s position toward foreign countries when it comes to copyright enforcement. The RIAA’s report (odt) includes more than 50 alleged pirate sites, but it is the introduction that draws most attention.

Neil Turkewitz, RIAA Executive Vice President, informs the Government that some of the rogue websites, and their supporters, falsely argue that they aid freedom of speech and counter censorship.

Specifically, the RIAA describes The Pirate Bay and other pirate sites as an assault on our humanity, suggesting that the right to protect one’s copyrights trumps freedom of expression.

“Some observers continue to suggest that the protection of expression is a form of censorship or restriction on fundamental freedoms, and some pirate sites cloak themselves in the language of freedom to justify themselves—sites like The Pirate Bay…” Turkewitz writes.

“We must end this assault on our humanity and the misappropriation of fundamental human rights. If the protection of expression is itself a restriction on freedom of expression, then we have entered a metaphysical Wonderland that stands logic on its head, and undermines core, shared global values about personhood,” he adds.

The RIAA says it’s hopeful that the piracy threat can be addressed if society and legitimate companies stop doing business with these sites. To do so, the public must stop conflating anti-piracy measures with censorship.

“We may not be able to eradicate piracy—there will always be an isolated number of individuals or enterprises who are prepared to steal whatever they can, but we can—and must—stop providing moral cover by conflating copyright enforcement with censorship, or by misapplying notions of Internet freedom or permissionless innovation so that they extend to an embrace of lawlessness.”

In recent months copyright holders have often hammered on payment processors and advertising networks to stop doing business with pirate sites. The RIAA reiterates this in their USTR submission, but also points a finger at the ISPs, at least indirectly.

According to the RIAA, BitTorrent indexing sites make deals with hosting providers to pay lower fees if they have more traffic. While this is standard business for most ISPs, the industry group frames it as an indirect source of revenue for the pirate sites.

“Indexing services can, and usually do, generate revenue from one or more of the following: advertising, user donations and suspected arrangements with ISPs whereby reduced fees are offered in return for increased traffic on the sites. The particular financial model, structure and approach vary from site to site,” Turkewitz notes.

Finally, the RIAA admits that some torrent sites process DMCA takedown notices, but believes that this is only an attempt to “appear” legitimate. In reality the infringing content is re-uploaded almost instantly, so the problem remains.

“As a result, copyright owners are forced into an endless ‘cat and mouse’ game, which requires considerable resources to be devoted to chasing infringing content, only for that same infringing content to continually reappear,” the report reads.

Without specifying what, Turkewitz notes that torrent site owners have to do more if they really want to become legitimate services.

“It is imperative that BitTorrent site operators take reasonable measures to prevent the distribution of infringing torrents or links and to implement measures that would prevent the indexing of infringing torrents,” he writes.

In addition to torrent sites the submission also lists various cyberlockers, blogs and linking sites which allegedly deserve the label “notorious market.”

Below is the RIAA’s full list as it was reported to the USTR. These, and the other submissions will form the basis of the U.S. Government’s Special 301 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets, which is expected to come out later this year.

—

- vKontakte
- EX.UA
- The Pirate Bay
- KickAss.to
- Torrentz.eu
- Bitsnoop.com
- ExtraTorrent.cc
- Isohunt.to
- Zamunda
- Arena.bg
- Torrenthound.com
- Fenopy.se
- Monova.org
- Torrentreactor.net
- Sumotorrent.sx
- Seedpeer.me
- Torrentdownloads.me
- 4shared.com
- Uploaded.net
- Oboom.com
- Zippyshare.com
- Rapidgator.net
- Turbobit.net
- Ulozto.cz
- Sdílej.cz
- Hell Spy
- HellShare
- Warez-dk.org
- Freakshare.com
- Bitshare.com
- Letitbit.net
- 1fichier.com
- Filestube.to
- Music.so.com
- Verycd.com
- Gudanglagu.com
- Thedigitalpinoy.org
- Todaybit.com
- Chacha.vn
- Zing.vn
- Songs.to
- Boerse.to
- Mygully.com
- Wawa-mania.ec
- Bajui.com
- Goear.com
- Pordescargadirecta.com
- Exvagos.com
- Degraçaémaisgostoso.org
- Baixeturbo.org
- Hitsmp3.net
- Musicasparabaixar.org
- Sapodownloads.net
- Sonicomusica.com
- Jarochos.net
- Rnbexclusive.se
- Newalbumreleases.net

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the MPAA’s latest submission. The Hollywood group targets a wide variety of websites which they claim are promoting the illegal distribution of movies and TV-shows, with declining incomes and lost jobs in the movie industry as a result.

These sites and services not only threaten the movie industry, but according to the MPAA they also put consumers at risk through identity theft and by spreading malware.

“It is important to note that websites that traffic in infringing movies, television shows, and other copyrighted content do not harm only the rights holder. Malicious software or malware, which puts Internet users at risk of identity theft, fraud, and other ills, is increasingly becoming a source of revenue for pirate sites,” MPAA writes.

Below is an overview of the “notorious markets” the MPAA reported to the Government. The sites are listed in separate categories and each have a suspected location, as defined by the movie industry group.

Torrent Sites

BitTorrent remains the most popular P2P software as the global piracy icon, MPAA notes. The Pirate Bay poses one of the largest threats here. Based on data from Comscore, the MPAA says that TPB has about 40 million unique visitors per month, which appears to be a very low estimate.

“Thepiratebay.se (TPB) claims to be the largest BitTorrent website on the Internet with a global Alexa rank of 91, and a local rank of 72 in the U.S. Available in 35 languages, this website serves a wide audience with upwards of 43.5 million peers,” MPAA writes.

“TPB had 40,551,220 unique visitors in August 2014 according to comScore World Wide data. Traffic arrives on this website through multiple changing ccTLD domains and over 90 proxy websites that assist TPB to circumvent site blocking actions.”

For the first time the MPAA also lists YIFY/YTS in its overview of notorious markets. The MPAA describes YTS as one of the most popular release groups, and notes that these are used by the Popcorn Time streaming application.

“[Yts.re] facilitates the downloading of free copies of popular movies, and currently lists more than 5,000 high-quality movie torrents available to download for free,” MPAA writes.

“Additionally, the content on Yts.re supports desktop torrent streaming application ‘Popcorn Time’ which has an install base of 1.4 million devices and more than 100,000 active users in the United States alone.”

The full list of reported torrent sites is as follows:

- Kickass.to (Several locations)
- Thepiratebay.se (Sweden)
- Torrentz.eu (Germany/Luxembourg)
- Rutracker.org (Russia)
- Yts.re (Several locations)
-Extratorrent.cc (Ukraine)
-Xunlei.com (China)

The mention of Xunlei.com is interesting as the Chinese company signed an anti-piracy deal with the MPA earlier this year. However, according to the MPAA piracy is still rampant, and there is no evidence that Xunlei has fulfilled its obligations.

Direct Download and Streaming Cyberlockers

The second category of pirate sites reported by the MPAA are cyberlockers. The movie industry group points out that these sites generate million of dollars in revenue, citing the recently released report from Netnames.

Interestingly, the MPAA doesn’t include 4shared and Mega, the two services who discredited the report in question. As in previous submissions VKontakte, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, is also listed as a notorious market.

- VK.com (Russia)
- Uploaded.net (Netherlands)
- Rapidgator.net (Russia)
- Firedrive.com (New Zealand)
- Nowvideo.sx and the “Movshare Group” (Panama/Switzerland/Netherlands)
- Netload.in (Germany)

Linking Websites

The largest category in terms of reported sites represents linking websites. These sites don’t host the infringing material, but only link to it. The full list of linking sites is as follows.

- Free-tv-video-online.me (Canada)
- Movie4k.to (Romania)
- Primewire.ag (Estonia)
- Watchseries.lt (Switzerland)
- Putlocker.is (Switzerland)
- Solarmovie.is (Latvia)
- Megafilmeshd.net (Brazil)
- Filmesonlinegratis.net (Brazil)
- Watch32.com (Germany)
- Yyets.com (China)
- Cuevana.tv (Argentina)
- Viooz.ac (Estonia)
- Degraçaemaisgostoso.org (Brazil)
- Telona.org (Brazil)

The inclusion of Cuevana.tv is noteworthy as the website stopped offering direct links to infringing content earlier this year. Instead, it now direct people to its custom “Popcorn Time” equivalent “Storm.”

Finally, the MPAA lists one Usenet provider, the German based Usenext.com. This service was included because, unlike other providers, it allegedly heavily markets itself to P2P users.

Later this year the US Trade Representative will use the submissions of the MPAA and other parties to make up its final list of piracy havens. The U.S. Government will then alert the countries where these sites are operating from, hoping that local authorities take action.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As a result the United States Trade Representative has labeled the site a “notorious market” on several occasions. While VK has taken some steps to address the issues this year, copyright holders are far from satisfied.

This week the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which represents MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry groups, called out VK as one of the worst piracy havens around. The U.S. Government is organizing a hearing on Russia’s WTO implementation and in a request to testify the IIPA points out that piracy is rampant in the country.

“Russia is home to several of the U.S. Government’s ‘Notorious Markets’ for copyright piracy, especially digital piracy,” IIPA’s Eric Schwartz writes (pdf).

“One such Notorious Market is vKontakte, the most popular online social network in Russia, and the largest single distributor of infringing music in Russia; it is also a hotbed for online piracy of movies and television programming.”

Despite the numerous complaints that have been submitted to the Russian authorities, widespread piracy remains a problem on the social network. Last year Russia implemented a new law that would allow copyright holders to have structurally infringing websites blocked, but attempts to target VK have failed thus far.

“To date, the Government of Russia has taken little or no action against this site, or the other sites or services identified by the U.S. and other foreign governments and copyright rightsholders. This is symptomatic of the problems of ineffective enforcement in Russia,” Schwartz adds.

The critique of VK is not new. The MPAA and other copyright holders have complained about it for years. Having this in mind, we were surprised to find that several Hollywood studios still advertise their content on VK.

In recent months copyright holders have been lobbying advertising networks to stop doing business with so-called pirate sites. However, major movie studios including Warner Bros see no problem with having a presence on VK.

Below is a screenshot of the VK profile of Warner Bros. Russian branch, which currently has 146,780 members. Aside from promoting new movies, they also list several music tracks they don’t appear to hold the copyrights to.

Warner Bros. is of course not the only studio with an official VK account. Universal Pictures has a dedicated page for Russian fans too, and so do Disney, Marvel and 20th Century Fox.

The above are just a few examples. There are many other companies represented by the IIPA who have a profile on the “notorious pirate site”, Microsoft included.

So instead of asking Russia to take action against the site, shouldn’t these companies stop advertising on it first? Considering the fact that they place VK in the same category as The Pirate Bay, that would make sense.

Or perhaps the Hollywood studios will create an official Pirate Bay profile, to start uploading trailers of their latest movies there as well…?

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Many of the big ‘pirate’ sites – The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, for example – have been blocked for years but now the country seems intent on blacking out sites that are definitely not in the piracy business.

As reported here on Saturday, last week a judge sitting in the Court of Rome ordered local ISPs to block a total of 24 websites including Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz and Russia’s largest email provider, Mail.ru.

The size and importance of Mail.ru in its home country and further afield is noteworthy. It’s the fifth most-visited domain in Russia behind only Yandex, Google and social networking giant vKontakte, of which it owns 51.99%. It’s the 39th busiest site worldwide according to Alexa, servicing in excess of 27 million users per day.

In a statement this morning Mail.ru said it has still not been able to establish the specifics that lead to it being blocked in Italy. Eyemoon Pictures, the complainant in the case, made no attempt to discuss any issues with Mail.ru before heading off to court, the email giant said.

“[Eyemoon Pictures] made no attempt to resolve the situation pretrial,” the company said in a statement.

“No notification of illegal content or requirements to remove copies of [Eyemoon's] films has been addressed to Mail.Ru Group from law enforcement agencies and Italy.”

The company only realized there was a problem when users began complaining of accessibility issues on July 17.

“We learned of the court’s decision from our users, as well as publications in the public domain,” Mail.ru added.

Criticizing the effects of the blockade on its userbase, this morning Mail.ru hit out at Italy for taking action without due consideration.

“We believe that this situation is detrimental to the interests of our users, and clearly illustrates the fact that some national laws in this area does not consider the specifics of the Internet companies and do not provide a clear, transparent process for resolving such conflicts,” the company said.

“There needs to be an active dialogue on the development of international pre-trial procedures for resolving disputes between copyright holders and Internet service providers. Their introduction will improve the position of all parties, including users worldwide,” Mail.ru concludes.

At the time of writing, Mail.ru is still inaccessible in Italy with the company having made no progress towards having the censorship lifted.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Yesterday the caucus became the International Creativity and Theft-Prevention Caucus, a change of name shunning the term ‘piracy’ in favor of an artist-focused theme that furthers the notion that infringement is the same as stealing.

The Watch List

As usual there are international winners and losers in the caucus report. On the up are Italy and the Philippines, with the former taking especially drastic steps to combat online file-sharing, including the blocking of ‘pirate’ sites by an administrative body, no court process required.

“In light of the reforms undertaken and a greater commitment to enforcing the law, both nations were removed from the Special 301 Report for the first time in its 25 year history. The caucus applauds Italy and the Philippines for undertaking reforms that recognize the importance of fostering creativity,” the report reads.

But in terms of improvements, the praise stopped there. In the file-sharing space, Switzerland came under attack after a momentous court decision four years ago

The Swiss file-sharing privacy safe haven

The controversy surrounds the so-called ‘Logistep Decision‘. The Logistep anti-piracy outfit became infamous in the latter half of the last decade for their work providing tracking services for copyright trolls in Europe and the UK.

In 2010 following several years of legal wrangling and controversy, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court ordered the anti-piracy outfit to stop harvesting the IP addresses of file-sharers. Underlining the notion that IP addresses are private data, the court’s decision effectively outlawed the tracking of file-sharers in Switzerland with the aim of later filing a lawsuit.

In its report the caucus says that Switzerland’s timeline (18 months minimum) for bringing the country “back up to international standards for protection of copyright” is unacceptable so the country will remain on the Watch List. That position is unlikely to change anytime soon considering the long Swiss tradition of respecting privacy.

Russia

Unsurprisingly the main site mentioned in respect of Russia is local Facebook variant vKontakte. The site has come under sustained attacks from both the RIAA and MPAA and the caucus is happy to keep up the pressure in 2014, despite Russia’s efforts to really tighten up local copyright law.

“The Caucus urges the Russian Government to take prompt action against websites that actively facilitate the theft of copyrighted materials, in particular vKontakte which was again named as a Notorious Market while remaining one of the most highly trafficked websites in Russia. Given the scale of online piracy emanating from Russia, it is crucial the Russia take serious and large scale action to enforce the law against rogue actors and end their status as a haven for digital piracy,” the report reads.

China and India

As expected, China is yet again subjected to criticism, despite clear signs that the country is changing its attitudes towards IP enforcement.

“Though the climate for intellectual property has improved, driven in part by a growing domestic creative sector within China, the scale of piracy remains massive, inflicting substantial harm to American and Chinese creators,” the caucus says.

And despite playing host to a large local creative industry, the caucus says that India is not doing enough to protect IP either, with high rates of camcorder movie piracy and a lack of effective notice-and-takedown procedures both aggravating factors.

Follow-the-money

Given the current collaborations between governments and the private sector with their “follow-the-money” approach to dealing with infringement, it’s no surprise that the caucus has focused a section of its report on this initiative.

Current momentum sees strong international efforts to eliminate the appearance of major brands’ advertising on ‘rogue’ sites and the caucus reports further progress on that front. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA), American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As), and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) have all reported taking “concrete steps” towards evaluating “digital ad assurance” technologies to keep revenue away from pirate sites.

In a response, RIAA Executive Vice President Neil Turkewitz praised the caucus for its efforts.

“Their work on advertising has already led to various improvements, and we hope that soon the lure of generating money from advertising will no longer be viable for sites serving as distribution hubs for infringing content,” Turkewitz said.

Echoing the words of Italian Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero, who had been invited to the report’s unveiling in recognition of his country’s anti-piracy achievements, the MPAA reiterated that the protection of copyright on the Internet is essential to the development of business.

“At the MPAA, we couldn’t agree more, and deeply appreciate the steps being taken by the caucus to help protect the creative industries and the millions of workers they employ – both here in the United States and abroad,” the MPAA conclude.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As a result the United States Trade Representative labels VK a “notorious market”, a particularly unhelpful label for an operation with big ambitions.

But now, in a move designed to allow the company to move forward, VK has reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding with Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecoms watchdog.

The memorandum, which represents a consensus of how Internet companies should deal with pirated movies and offer legal alternatives, has already been signed by representatives of 36 Internet sites. Until now, however, VK has refused to sign.

According to the document, reported by Izvestia, VK has agreed to block infringing content “within a reasonable time” and look towards the introduction of fingerprinting technology. This will enable the site to effectively deal with the reappearance of content already taken down by rightsholders.

A source in Roskomnadzor said that VK will sign up before the start of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on May 22.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In several Special 301 Reports published by the United States Trade Representative, Russia’s Facebook equivalent has been criticized for the huge quantities of unauthorized media it hosts. As a result it is currently labeled a “notorious market”, a term usually reserved for piracy’s apparent worst-of-the-worst.

In common with many user-generated sites, VK allows its millions of users to upload anything from movies and TV shows to their entire music collections. Unlike Facebook and other major players, Russia’s social network has been very slow to adopt anti-piracy measures.

Three major record labels – Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music – have now taken their concerns to the Saint Petersburg & Leningradsky Region Arbitration Court. The labels accuse VK of running a service that facilitates large-scale copyright infringement and are demanding countermeasures and compensation.

The record labels have asked for an order requiring VK to implement fingerprinting technology to delete copyrighted works and prevent them from being re-uploaded. In addition, Sony, Warner and Universal are demanding 50 million rubles ($1.4 million) from the social networking site to compensate for losses suffered.

“VK’s music service, unlike others in Russia, is an unlicensed file-sharing service that is designed for copyright infringement on a large-scale,” IFPI’s Frances Moore says in a comment.

“We have repeatedly highlighted this problem over a long period of time. We have encouraged VK to cease its infringements and negotiate with record companies to become a licensed service. To date the company has taken no meaningful steps to tackle the problem, so today legal proceedings are being commenced,” Moore adds.

VK has yet to respond to the accusations. Russia’s telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor previously said that VK was trying very hard to better their anti-piracy practices, but these efforts apparently came too late.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

VKontakte (In Touch), is Russia’s Facebook. It’s a huge operation with tens of millions of users, each of whom has the ability to upload music, movies and TV shows to share with their friends. And with their friends’ friends. And with their friends’ friends’ friends.

Needless to say, entertainment companies aren’t pleased that this social networking giant is facilitating piracy on a grand scale, especially when that content – music in particular – goes on to fuel countless free MP3 download portals all around the Internet. If you’ve ever downloaded MP3s from the free web, chances are some of that music has come from VK.

For some time VK has been keen to update its image by making steps towards becoming more rightsholder-friendly. That said, it’s never really been enough for the U.S. and as a result Russia has again found itself on the latest Special 301 Report. But there signs that things could be getting more serious.

VK Executive Director Dmitry Sergeyev told ITAR-TASS yesterday that consultations between his company and rightsholders were underway, with a view to the signing of an anti-piracy memorandum with telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor.

As the government outfit at the center of Russia’s web-blocking mechanism, Roskomnadzor has significant power. Its anti-piracy memo deals with the pre-trial settlement of disputes between sites and copyright holders and requires signatories to implement content fingerprinting and identification systems in order to filter and block unauthorized material.

“VKontakte will introduce content identification, which will be used to monitor and promptly delete published content protected by copyright,” a source close to the company said.

“This will be the first step towards eliminating the social network from of the U.S. Trade Representative’s Special 301 Report, which is currently limiting the company’s ability to raise funds abroad and sign agreements with foreign rightsholders.”

Anti-piracy memorandum signatory the Russian Anti-Piracy Organization (RAPO) will be the messenger of progress. The group says it will monitor VK for pirate content in the months to come and if there is significant improvement, the MPAA will be informed.

“During this year, the industry will be observing what is happening to the sites, including VK.com,” RAPO chief Konstantin Zemchenkov said.

“If pirate content disappears from the social network, we’ll report to the MPAA, which in turn will report that fact to the IIPA [International Intellectual Property Alliance], which will inform the US authorities.”

Since the Special 301 Report is based on the previous years’ data, even in the event of progress VK won’t be able to get off the list until 2015. The site has been included since 2011, so removal isn’t going to come easy. Other local sites, such as RUtracker.org and Rapidgator, remain on the list as thorns in the side of the U.S.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The list is based on input from industry groups and copyright holders 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 responsible authorities could use the list to take legal action.

“The United States urges the responsible authorities to intensify efforts to combat piracy and counterfeiting, and to use the information contained in the Notorious Markets Review to pursue legal actions where appropriate,” USTR states.

One of the prime targets is The Pirate Bay. According to USTR the site continues to facilitate downloading of copyright-infringing material. The Government further highlights the site’s resilience, mentioning recent domain name changes and the release of TPB’s censorship-resistant browser last summer.

“The site released its own web browser designed to evade network controls and reportedly has plans to offer software to circumvent conventional methods of enforcement. Network security experts have criticized The Pirate Bay for failing to follow security best practices in the development of their software,” USTR writes.

The last part feels a little out of place. The Pirate Bay can be accused of a lot of things by the Government, but not following security “best practices” is not the first thing that comes to mind.

While the inclusion of The Pirate Bay comes as no surprise, RapidShare’s listing is quite unexpected. The cloud hosting service has taken extreme measures to deter piracy and as a result was excluded from the most recent “Notorious Markets” list.

Even though visitor counts continued to drop in recent years, the USTR now believes that the site deserves to be included again, mentioning a recent ruling where RapidShare was ordered to pay $26,000 to a Czech movie director.

“Although RapidShare.com’s popularity has diminished since its 2012 listing, it remains one of the most active sites worldwide as well as in the Czech Republic, where it is best known as Share-rapid.cz,” USTR writes.

Another surprising mention was given to Aiseesoft.com, a software vendor that sells video converter and ripping tools. While this software may not be permitted in the US, it’s perfectly legal in other countries.

The Government, however, classifies the company as a notorious market and its competitor SlySoft.com was awarded the same label.

“Rights holders indicate that this site’s operators, reportedly based in China, develop and make available to customers worldwide various ‘high-quality’ DVD converter tools [...] that, according to the site, allow users to circumvent technical protection measures and view video content in an unauthorized manner,” USTR writes.

In addition to the domains listed above, the US Government is also pointing a finger at the following sites:

PutLocker, Baixedetudo.net, Darkwarez.pl, Ex.ua, Extratorrent.cc, Free-tv-video-online.me, KickassTorrents.com, Kuaibo.com ,Mp3skull.com, Rapidgator.net, Rutracker.org, Seriesyonkis.com, Torrentz.eu, Uploaded.net, vKontakte.com, Wawa-mania.ec, Xunlei.com, Kankan.com, Zamunda.net, Arenabg.com and Zing.vn.

The “notorious markets” list is meant to be a pressure tool on the sites and the countries from where they are operated. Meanwhile, the sites remain accessible in the U.S. itself and thus far no attempts have been made to have local ISPs block any of them.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In several Special 301 Reports published by the United States Trade Representative, Russia’s Facebook equivalent has been criticized for the huge quantities of unauthorized media it hosts and labeled a “notorious market”, a term usually reserved for piracy’s apparent worst-of-the-worst.

The problem stems from the fact that vKontakte allows its tens of millions of users to upload anything from movies and TV shows to their entire music collections. This content then becomes available for anyone to enjoy, from members of the site to complete outsiders. Many of the big, free MP3 download sites on the web are powered by MP3s pulled from vKontakte, so this is not just a Russian issue.

In response to the complaints, earlier this year the company confirmed it had deployed fingerprinting technology, similar to YouTube’s Content ID. Whether this would be enough to appease rightsholders would remain to be seen, but in a statement this week the head of Russia’s telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor said the site’s actions should be enough to remove it from the USTR’s list.

“VKontakte is now in active dialog with all the rights owners,” Alexander Zharov said. “It is my hope that, given the progress in their relations with the owners, VKontakte will be excluded from the 301 list.”

So good news for vKontakte then? Well, not so fast. Let’s not forget that it’s the Hollywood studios and major recording labels that provide the fuel for the Special 301 Report and if they aren’t happy, the USTR isn’t going to be happy either. And all the signs suggest that they are far from content.

In fact, according to reports in Russian media this morning, the major labels are getting ready to take vKontakte on in the traditional way – via lawsuit.

National Federation of the Music Industry chief Leonid Agronov says that Sony, Universal, EMI, Warner and other rights owners have run out of patience and will sue the social network after the holiday period is over.

“This year, we have tried all the civilized ways of influencing the state, society and the Internet industry. Next year we will be much more aggressive and brazen. We have spent four years trying to normalize the situation to somehow move piracy beyond the law,” he said.

NFMI members are said to be preparing to sue in the St. Petersburg Court of Arbitration in an attempt to have at least six thousand pieces of music removed from vKontakte, including works from Beyonce, 50 Cent, Eminem, Jay-Z, Madonna, Skrillex, Linkin Park, Metallica and Pink Floyd.

Agronov said that the labels have tried to negotiate with the site in order for it to begin paying for the music it hosts with a suggestion it shifts those costs to its users, but apparently vKontakte is interested in neither. It nevertheless profits from advertising while its users listen to unauthorized music, he added.

According to Izvestia, the legal action could take up to a couple of months or even a couple of years, depending on the determination of each side.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.