USTR Names Notorious Markets, Announces List Removals, Including Chinese Taobao

New foreign markets have been deemed detrimental to U.S. intellectual property, the U.S.Trade Representative said in its annual Notorious Markets List . The list "identifies selected markets, including ones on the Internet, that are reportedly engaged in substantial piracy and counterfeiting" and "have been the subject of enforcement actions or that may merit further investigation for possible [intellectual property rights] infringements," the USTR said in the report. The report outlined the "most prominent examples ... of notorious markets," including China-based Xunlei, which offers pirated content through deep-linking, cyberlocker services and peer-to-peer networking.

For linking-specific sites, the report pointed to Sweden-based Baixe de Tudo, China-based Gougou and forum site Warez-bb, which is hosted by a Russian ISP but registered in Sweden. The report highlighted cyberlocker sites Rapidgator.net -- which "gained popularity and users in the wake of MegaUpload's closure" and moved to Russia after U.K. officials shut it down -- U.K.-based Putlocker and Ukraine-based Ex.ua. The report also identified BitTorrent indexing sites ThePirateBay, based in Sweden, and torrentz.eu -- a torrent aggregator formerly torrentz.com, based in Canada, Panama and Switzerland -- as well as social media sites Zing.Vn from Vietnam and vKontakta from Russia. The report also listed physical markets in countries including China and Mexico.

Markets from the December 2011 list saw "positive action," the USTR said. Chinese website Taobao, owned by Alibaba, was "removed from the 2012 List because it has undertaken notable efforts over the past year to work with rightholders directly or through their industry associations to clean up its site," the USTR wrote, as was Chinese website Sogou. As a result of the Justice Department's takedown of MegaUpload, several other cyberlocker sites have either shut down completely or "changed their business models to ensure that no infringing content could be hosted, linked, or found on their websites," the report said. The Mexican government shut down torrent site Demonoid, according to the report, and the Canadian government shut down Modchip.ca and Consolesource, "which were listed in 2011 for involvement in marketing of circumvention devices."

The report "highlights the need for accountability in the online space, vigilance against physical piracy markets, and strong laws against piracy that are strictly enforced against notorious markets," said Steven Metalitz, counsel to the International Intellectual Property Alliance, in a statement. Metalitz commended the U.S.'s "continuing focus" on notorious piracy markets. The USTR's "listing process works: it gets the attention of responsible governments, and even of some marketplace operators," he said.

The USTR's listing process "has fostered real progress with respect to several online markets," the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a statement, applauding the agency "for recognizing the detrimental effects of online notorious markets and continued efforts to shine a spotlight on this growing problem." Michael O'Leary, MPAA senior executive vice president-global policy and external affairs, credited the process with having "fostered real improvements in the global marketplace, most recently with Taobao making significant progress to address counterfeiting of our members' content on its site, and we are grateful to USTR for this effort." -- Kate Tummarello