WASHINGTON, DC (Top40 Charts/ RIAA) The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) today issued its report on "Notorious Markets" - locations, physical or online, in which copyright theft is open, pervasive and undermines the respect for the rule of law. In addition to physical markets from Argentina to Ukraine that operate in blatant disregard of the law,
Internet sites such as Baidu of China, vKontake of Russia, allofmp3.com clones in Russia and Ukraine, Canada's isoHunt and Sweden's The Pirate Bay are all featured prominently in the report.
Below is a comment from Neil Turkewitz, Executive Vice President, International, for the Recording
Industry Association of
America (RIAA).
"We welcome this report which shines a critical light on international businesses that are destinations for open, notorious and rampant copyright theft. Whether online or in the physical space, these are firms who either directly profit from the sale or other distribution of illegal materials, or who profit from facilitating such theft - in many cases through the sale of advertising.
"Some of the sites identified in this report, such as The Pirate Bay or isoHunt, wear this badge with honor.
Others like Baidu or vKontakte purport to be legitimate but in fact operate network services that include features that intentionally induce the theft of copyrighted music. These services' business strategy is to deliberately gain market share by providing access to illicit content - launching music services without any form of licensing. Or it's to operate like clones of the shuttered allofmp3.com - such as mp3fiesta.com - in countries like Ukraine and Russia, hosting and selling music, duping consumers into believing that they might be legitimate by various references to licenses that they do not possess.
"In a development related to this report, we commend the recent announcement that the government of Ukraine has adopted an action plan under which it has committed to addressing a variety of
Internet piracy issues including action against mp3fiesta.com - identified as 'one of the 6 largest pirate sites in the world'- and ensuring 'that rogue collecting societies cannot continue their illegal practices.' We hope that the government of Ukraine will quickly redeem these commitments, and we thank USTR for its efforts in promoting the adoption of this plan.
"RIAA members are excited about the potential of the
Internet and other communication technologies to provide an efficient way to distribute music to fans. Regrettably, this potential remains largely unrealized - mired in a morass of digital theft. At present, the overwhelming majority of music downloads are illegal.
"Governments can effectively promote innovation and competition in both the communications and intellectual property sectors by enhancing responsibility and accountability in the online space, and we hope that this report will help to enhance this accountability. There must not be safe havens for services that encourage and profit from copyright theft. For new legal online services to succeed, we must ensure that such services do not face unfair competition from unauthorized sources."
BACKGROUND:
Baidu: China
Baidu is the Chinese leader in providing search services in China, but by its own admission, owes much of its popularity to a dedicated music service in which it assembles deep links to illegal materials. Few if any of the links provided by Baidu connect the user to legitimate versions of copyright-protected materials. It is undoubtedly one of the largest distributors of infringing music in the world. According to the firm's own SEC disclosures, it highlight the material risk to the company if it is ever held to the same standards related to inducement as those articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster. On January 22, 2010, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court decided that Baidu was not liable for copyright infringement. The appeal was heard in October 2010, and the decision is pending.
vKontakte: Russia
vKontakte is the most popular online social network in Russia, though it is available to a wider international audience in many languages including English. It currently ranks in the top 40 most visited sites in the world according to alexa.com. The site's music functionality is specifically designed to enable members to upload music and video files, hundreds of thousands of which contain unlicensed copyright works. Its dedicated content search engine enables other members to search and instantly stream illegal content, giving vKontakte the edge over other social networks that do not offer free access to unlicensed material. As more members upload infringing content, more new members are attracted to the site, and yet more illegal copyrighted works are uploaded. With some 93 million registered members the scale of damage to right holders is significant. In addition, third party software developers have distributed apps that enable non-vkontakte members to search and download the content available on the site. The developer of the Mulve app has been subject to criminal action in the UK, but similar apps remain available and appear not to be blocked by vKontakte, which takes no proactive measures to prevent copyright infringement on its service.
