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 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.

Shenzhen QVOD Technology, the company behind Kuaibo.com, made the 2013 USTR report and also incurred the displeasure of the Chinese with its alleged facilitation of online piracy. Aiming to make amends, a few days ago the company announced that it would block piracy in its software tools and invest in licensed content.

By yesterday, however, Kuaibo/QVOD’s overtures were being brushed aside when police in Shenzhen raided its offices. The photograph below, published by 91shouce.com, claims to show the raid in progress.

Details on what happened during the raid are unclear, but local news reports suggest that police isolated employees and told them not to use phones or computers.

In a statement the company rejected claims that people had been arrested and equipment seized, adding that it was operating as usual.

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

Chinese companies such as Baidu have been fixtures in the USTR’s reporting for many years, but changes to its operations in 2011 meant that it was able to stay off the list, although at home it is still the subject of various legal clashes. Now, just two months after the USTR published its 2013 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets, another Chinese company is hoping to please both local and US interests by ditching its pirate reputation.

In its last publication, sandwiched between KickassTorrents and MP3Skull, the USTR called out a site called Kuaibo. The company behind that site is the Shenzhen QVOD Technology Co. It’s the creator of QVOD, a technology originally designed to enable small and medium sized business to distribute their content online using BitTorrent, P2P, and streaming technology.

With an estimated userbase of 25 million (100 million on its mobile app) the company’s player software is undoubtedly popular. However, many of its users are now using QVOD to share unauthorized content via what appears to be a Popcorn Time-style P2P streaming feature.

“QVOD has become a leading facilitator of wide-scale distribution of copyright-infringing content and of other content considered illicit in China,” the USTR wrote, referring to pirate movies/music and pornography.

However, in an announcement this week, Shenzhen QVOD Technology Co reported that it had taken steps to stop the unlawful distribution of both copyright-infringing and adult content via its software. All illegal content will be blocked and the company will move to a commercial and fully-licensed footing.

“From now on, the previous ‘fast play mode’ [of QVOD’s Nora Player) will come to an end,” a company spokesman said. “Nora is willing to work with counterparts to jointly promote the development of the genuine video industry.”

The motivation for “going legal” appears to be financial. Analysts quoted in Chinese media say that its become increasingly difficult for QVOD to get advertisers who are happy for their brands to appear alongside infringing content. Since the company is pledging to spend more than $16m on licenses it needs money quickly, but whether its millions of pirates are ready to spend is far from clear.

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.

The MPAA’s report listed many of the usual suspects such as The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents, ExtraTorrent and Torrentz, plus a selection of file-hosting sites such as Netload, ExtaBit and PutLocker.

A little while ago TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the RIAA’s submission and aside from doubling up on some of the same sites listed by the MPAA, it also delivers a surprise.

Torrent site blocking imminent

The RIAA says that in just 48 hours time a new wave of site blocking will take place in the UK covering not only the usual BitTorrent indexes, but also dedicated search engines in the torrent and file-hosting space.

On October 30, ExtraTorrent will be blocked by the UK’s leading ISPs, presumably following action by the major labels of the BPI. ExtraTorrent has suffered at least two anti-piracy setbacks in the last week, first when City of London Police convinced its registrar to take its domain and second when Google removed the site’s homepage from its search results.

The second indexing site to be blocked on Wednesday will be BitSnoop, which earlier this year was the eighth most-popular torrent site in the world. The RIAA says that since the site provided no way for rightsholders to make contact the decision was made to have ISPs block the site instead.

The third site to be rendered inaccessible this week will be Torrentz.eu. What is unusual about this development is that Torrentz is a so-called meta-search engine, in that it carries no torrents of its own but searches other torrent sites instead. Nevertheless, the site still complies with DMCA takedown notices, a fact acknowledged by the RIAA.

“[Torrentz] is currently hosted by Canadian providers. The site complies with take down notices by removing the torrents identified in those notices which provide access to infringing files. The site can take up to several days to remove infringing files following a request by right holders,” the RIAA explain.

In the rest of the USTR submission on torrent sites the RIAA lists many of the usual suspects, including The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents, Torrenthound.com, Fenopy.se, Monova.org, Torrentreactor.net and Sumotorrent.sx. Many of these sites are blocked around Europe already.

As usual, two resilient trackers from Bulgaria – Arenabg and Zamunda – also get a mention.

Cyberlockers and related search engines

While there are plenty of file-hosting sites to choose from that could certainly be considered rogue (refusing to take down content etc) it’s again somewhat of a surprise that this week a copyright-compliant site will become blocked at the ISP level.

FilesTube is the most popular search engine for file-hosting sites and as such has been absolutely hammered by rightsholders looking for links to be taken down. It is by far the most targeted domain in Google’s Transparency Report with 9,242,032 URLs removed, double its closest ‘competitor’.

Interestingly the RIAA admits in its report that Filestube does respond to takedown notices. However, the industry can’t keep up so the implication is that this is FileTube’s fault.

“Industry reports links to infringing materials to the site operator, but any action by the operator is ineffective as the speed of the takedowns cannot match the speed at which new links are added,” the RIAA writes.

Along with the sites listed above, FilesTube will be blocked by the UK’s top six ISPs on Wednesday.

Other hosting sites singled out for detailed criticism by the RIAA include Uploaded.net, 4Shared.com, ZippyShare.com, Rapidgator.net, TurboBit.net and a selection of lesser known sites located in the Czech Republic. Three other sites are mentioned in passing – FreakShare.com, BitShare.com and Extabit.com.

“We greatly welcome this initiative designed to expose businesses who operate notorious markets for infringing materials, and who generally either directly profit from the sale or other distribution of infringing materials, or who profit from facilitating such theft—in many cases through the sale of advertising space,” the RIAA writes.

“Quite simply, there is no place for open and notorious theft in a civilized world, regardless of how that theft is accomplished. Addressing the conduct of these notorious markets for piracy will go a long way towards promoting the rule of law, fuelling creativity and innovation, and maintaining US economic competitiveness,” the industry group concludes.

Meanwhile, every single site listed in the notorious market reports of both the RIAA and MPAA remain 100% accessible from all of the ISPs in the United States.

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

In its latest filing the MPAA targets a wide variety of websites which they claim are promoting illegal distribution of movies and TV-shows, with declining incomes and lost jobs in the movie industry as a result.

“Copyright theft is not a victimless crime. The criminals who profit from the most notorious markets throughout the world threaten the very heart of our industry and in doing so they threaten the livelihoods of the people who give it life,” the MPAA writes.

According to the movie industry group, in recent years the piracy landscape has become more fragmented and harder to deal with, as torrent sites, cyberlockers, streaming sites and linking sites continue to gain ground.

“Today the online market has further fragmented and content thieves are taking advantage of new online technologies, with streaming sites and cyberlockers representing a growing share of unlawful conduct.”

“Moreover, a secondary market has arisen in the form of ‘linking sites’, which are professional-looking sites that facilitate content theft by indexing stolen movie and television content hosted on other sites.

Despite these challenges the movie studios are also glad to report one of their recent successes, the takedown of isoHunt.com. Nevertheless, there are still many other sites that remain a problem for the group.

Below is the full list of ‘rogue’ sites and their suspected location as defined by the MPAA in its USTR filing.

BitTorrent / P2P sites:

- ExtraTorrent.com (Ukraine)
- Kickass.to (Canada)
- RuTracker.org (Russia)
- ThePirateBay.sx (Sweden)
- Torrentz.eu (Canada)
- Xunlei.com (China)
- Kuaibo.com (China)

Download/streaming:

- Extabit.com (Netherlands)
- Netload.in (Germany)
- Nowvideo.sx (Netherlands)
- Putlocker.com (United Kingdom)
- Rapidgator.net (Russia)
- Uploaded.net (Netherlands)
- VK.com (Russia)

Linking sites:

- Cuevana.tv (Argentina)
- Primewire.ag (Estonia)
- Filmesonlinegratis.net (Brazil)
- Free-tv-video-online.me (Czech Republic)
- Megafilmeshd.net (Brazil)
- Movie4k.to (Romania)
- Seriesyonkis.com (Spain)
- Solarmovie.eu (Latvia)
- Telona.org (Sweden)
- Yyets.com (China)

Usenet:

- Usenext.com (Germany)

The MPAA provides a short description for every site listed but doesn’t detail why these sites are considered “rogue” while others aren’t. Additionally, some of their other claims are not always accurate.

For example, the MPAA claims that Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm has been extradited to Denmark where he was supposedly sentenced following hacking related charges.

“In 2012, one of the site’s co-founders was found guilty on hacking charges in Sweden after his extradition from Cambodia. He was then extradited to Denmark and sentenced for similar charges in 2013,” MPAA writes.

However, Gottfrid is still in a Swedish prison and filed for an appeal at the Supreme Court this week. He hasn’t even left for Denmark, let alone been tried and sentenced.

Similarly, the MPAA suggests that Pirate Bay’s PirateBrowser is linking to websites that are actually hosted on the Tor network, which is not what it does.

“ThePirateBay.sx promoted its tenth year as an index website by releasing the PirateBrowser, a self-contained portable web browser with preset bookmarks to BitTorrent websites hosted on the TOR network,” MPAA notes.

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

In recent months, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has claimed time and again that key Hollywood figures used their influence to persuade some of the most powerful men in the United States to act against his company.

Then in early August it was suggested by sources in the Ukrainian government’s Interior Ministry that the closure of Demonoid was scheduled to coincide with Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky’s trip to the United States.

And now another interesting coincidence has raised its head, this time concerning The Pirate Bay.

As previously reported, Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm was arrested last week by police in Cambodia.

Svartholm was reportedly the subject of an Interpol ‘Red Notice’, an international request to “seek the location and detention, arrest or restriction of movement of a person wanted by a national jurisdiction or an international tribunal for the purpose of extradition, surrender, or similar lawful action.”

However, as stated by Cambodian authorities this weekend, he was detained following a specific request from the Swedish government.

Not only interestingly but seemingly against the odds, Cambodia also welcomed a very important visitor to the country on the day Svartholm was arrested – none other than Ambassador Ron Kirk, the United States Trade Representative and President Obama’s principal negotiator and spokesperson on trade issues.

“Ambassador Kirk and Cambodian Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh [..] announced today that the United States and Cambodia have agreed to begin exploratory discussions on a potential bilateral investment treaty (BIT),” the USTR said on Friday.

The announcement followed discussions between Kirk and Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). During the meetings Kirk reportedly “reiterated the Obama Administration’s intention to deepen and strengthen trade and investment between the United States and Southeast Asian nations.”

While “the digital economy” was a prime topic of discussion at the ASEAN meetings, earlier in the week Minister Prasidh had been discussing the issues of copyright infringement in much more detail.

On Tuesday, ASEAN Economic Ministers held a meeting in Cambodia with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The meeting was chaired by Cham Prasidh and WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. On the agenda was the creation, promotion, commercialization and protection of intellectual property.

Cooperation between Cambodia and WIPO was also reviewed with a view to “integrating the country into the global economy and world trade system.”

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

The IIPA, which counts the Association of American Publishers, BSA, ESA, Independent Film & Television Alliance, MPAA, National Music Publishers’ Association, and the RIAA among its members, has listed its grievances against a whole host of countries.

Unsurprisingly, especially given its members’ focus, the main complaints concern movie, music, video game and software piracy. The complaints about infringement in the digital realm are numerous.

From the Priority Watch List, the file-sharing focus falls on Canada, China, Russia and Ukraine.

Canada

According to the IIPA, Canada is “a haven where technologically sophisticated international piracy organizations can operate with virtual impunity in the online marketplace.” This is due, says the group, due to Canada’s reputation for having “weak, ineffective or non-existent” laws to outlaw infringement.

The IIPA notes correctly that Canada plays host to large numbers of BitTorrent sites including perhaps its most famous, isoHunt. The group says that the site has “operated with impunity” for more than 8 years despite being the subject of an injunction issued by a U.S. court. Of course, by definition the U.S. is outside Canadian jurisdiction

Other major torrent sites mentioned as having “Canadian connections” include KickAssTorrents and Torrentz.eu. It’s also noted that many French language torrent sites are operated from Quebec.

File-sharing related actions IIPA recommends Canada takes in 2012
Establish clear liability and effective remedies against those who operate illicit file-sharing services, or whose actions are otherwise directed to promoting infringement.

Enact strong legal incentives for Internet Service Providers to cooperate with copyright owners in combating online piracy, including by limiting the scope of liability safe harbors in accordance with international best practices.

China

The IIPA lists the main sources of online piracy as music portal sites, P2P services, deep-linking services (aka search engines), forums/blogs and cyberlockers. File-sharing client Xunlei and other services offered by its operators are mentioned several times.

Generally the situation in China has improved over the last 12 months with the IIPA noting that major P2P sites have “cleaned up” their pirated content. Illicit streaming services are described as problematic, as is the increase in consumption of illicit content via cellphones.

File-sharing related actions IIPA recommends China takes in 2012

The requests are many, but notably include increasing criminal prosecutions for services such as Xunlei and ‘deep-linking’ search engine operators such as Sohu/Sogou. The IIPA is also calling for China to allow foreign rights holder associations to conduct local anti-piracy investigations, and to lower the threshold for infringement to be considered criminal, to include non-profit copying.

Russia

The IIPA singles out two BitTorrent trackers as especially problematic – RUTracker.org (the renamed torrent.ru) and GameTorrent, a tracker alleged owned by a Russia national but hosted in Estonia.

According to the submission, Russia is home to the “world’s two most prolific criminal release groups” who camcord movies in local theaters and upload them to the Internet. The unnamed groups are said to have been responsible for 77 “exceptional quality” camcorded movies in 2011. A streaming video links site listed as offering such movies is the popular Video2k.tv

On the free music front, Russia’s Facebook equivalent, vKontakte, is singled out for criticism, despite apparently responding correctly to takedown demands.

“While vKontakte will generally takedown specific content when notified, that is an inappropriate enforcement mechanism for a problem of vKontakte’s own making,” the submission states.

Sites that charge a nominal amount for music, such as the numerous AllofMP3-type clones, are described as an “important source of piracy” which have grown to more than 30 in number since that site’s demise.

File-sharing related actions IIPA recommends Russia takes in 2012

As with China, the requests are numerous but focus on the takedown of unlicensed music streaming services and social networks (i.e vKontakte), MP3 download sites, BitTorrent trackers, and action against site operators even if their servers are outside Russian jurisdiction. IIPA also calls for changes in the law to force greater cooperation from ISPs against infringement.

Ukraine

Unsurprisingly, Demonoid.me is the focus of the IIPA’s anti-BitTorrent sentiments in Ukraine with claims that the site offers 75,000 movies and 47,000 TV shows for free. Cyberlocker EX.ua, which was raided in January but is now back online, leads the IIPA’s file-hosting complaints.

File-sharing related actions IIPA recommends Ukraine takes in 2012

IIPA wants Demonoid and pay-MP3 sites such as MP3Fiesta taken down by the police. Under current Ukraine law, ISPs are not responsible for the actions of their users, a situation that causes rightsholders problems say the group.

From the Watch List, the file-sharing focus falls on Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

Italy

The IIPA reports progress in Italy in recent years, citing the court-ordered ISP blockades of The Pirate Bay and the recently and voluntarily shuttered BTjunkie. Several other file-sharing sites have also been closed but IIPA says that further takedowns are being hindered by authorities not taking infringement seriously enough.

The Peppermint Jam case, which resulted in Italy’s Data Protection Authority ruling that monitoring P2P users and collecting their IP addresses is illegal, also causes problems for rightsholders.

File-sharing related actions IIPA recommends Italy takes in 2012

Take additional criminal actions against P2P services that meet the criteria for injunctions and liability established in the Pirate Bay decision and order ISPs to block access to those services.

Eliminate legal obstacles for rights holders to gather IP address evidence against file-sharers.

Spain

According to the IIPA, 55% of Spain’s online music piracy takes place via P2P networks such as BitTorrent, eMule and Ares, 34% via hosted websites and 11% via streaming services.

The ESA claim that there are around 30 major Spanish websites offering links to illicit copies of video games and bemoans the lack of support from local ISPs in tackling the problem. Nevertheless, since P2P linking sites have been ruled legal in Spain many times before, up to now there has been very little they can do.

File-sharing related actions IIPA recommends Spain takes in 2012

IIPA says that P2P really took off in 2007. It’s probably not a coincidence that in 2006 a circular from the Attorney General proclaimed the decriminalization of P2P downloads. No surprise then that IIPA wants this announcement “corrected”.

The group also wants the ability for rightsholders to bring civil and criminal actions against infringers by allowing them to obtain identifying information, and the law modified so that so that rights holder-submitted notices of infringement are capable of imparting ISPs with effective knowledge that infringement is occurring through its service without a court order.

Switzerland

The IIPA criticism of this land-locked country begins with a long-time enemy, the Razorback2 eD2K (eDonkey) indexing system which was subjected to huge raids in 2006 but later recovered. Swiss-based file-hosting giant RapidShare gets a brief mention as host of infringing content, but avoids the aggressive criticism of the past.

The main problem for the IIPA appears to concern current law.

“Since Switzerland’s copyright law contains a private copy exception with no expressly stated legal source requirement, downloading and streaming from servers operated by pirates outside Swizterland are being portrayed as legal in Switzerland by the press and anti-copyright activists, as long as there is no uploading,” the IIPA states in its report.

The IIPA also bemoans the fact that Swiss law allows DRM circumvention which taken together with the private copying exception “would allow individuals to circumvent access or copy control measures in order to copy from illegal sources and share with friends.”

File-sharing related actions IIPA recommends Switzerland takes in 2012

The 2010 ‘Logistep ruling‘ meant that collecting IP addresses in Switzerland with the aim of later filing a lawsuit was confirmed to be illegal and that IP addresses are personal data. IIPA would like the Data Protection Act changed to allow pursuit of infringers.

From the Special Mention List, the file-sharing focus falls on Hong Kong, former home of the now-defunct MegaUpload.

Hong Kong

Surprisingly, Megaupload isn’t mentioned at all in the IIPA submission, not even as a copyright enforcement “success story”. The same cannot be said about Filesonic, one of the world’s leading cyberlocker services.

Filesonic is among the top 10 file-sharing sites on the Internet, with a quarter billion page views a month. It disabled all 3rd party sharing in the wake of the Megaupload shutdown and actively blocks Hong Kong IP address.

None of this appears to have improved its standing with US entertainment companies. In its report the IIPA refers to Filesonic as an “infringing distribution hub” so when combined with a previous announcement by Hong Kong customs, Filesonic must be left feeling uneasy.

File-sharing related actions IIPA recommends Hong Kong takes in 2012

The IIPA notes that Hong Kong is working with rightsholders to combat infringement but more must be done, including the tightening up of proposed copyright-related legislation with a particular eye on punishing repeat infringers.

Summary

The IIPA submission is long, detailed, and actually informative and objective in parts, but it’s also peppered with language, insinuations and omissions one might expect of the lobby groups involved.

In the main, countries are criticized for not having tough enough laws to support US interests and where they do they’re criticized for not enforcing them.

ISPs are being put under pressure around the globe and are either criticized for not living up to their responsibilities under the law or where they do, for not doing enough to voluntarily assist rights holders.

File-sharing sites, wherever they may be, are branded as criminal organizations. Authorities are encouraged to legislate with that in mind, sooner rather than later.

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

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.

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