ThePirateBay.org Prominent on Industry’s Radar for Illegal Activity, Show USTR 301 Report Filings

ThePirateBay.org, an illicit torrent indexing service, remains a prominent target for the music, film and video game industries, show comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative posted this week. USTR collected comments through Monday for its Special 301 report on countries and groups that infringe U.S. intellectual property.

The Entertainment Software Association, MPAA and RIAA each cited the Pirate Bay. Though Swedish individuals created the indexing service, MPAA said the site’s current location is unknown. More than 2,200 infringing videogame URLs were found there in August, ESA said. The association also cited Peertorrents.top, where more than 8,100 infringing downloads were found in August. The videogame industry’s most notorious physical markets are in Mexico and Brazil, the group said.

All three trade groups cited illicit activity from so-called cyberlockers -- sites or services with centralized hosting for infringing content that can be downloaded and/or streamed. RIAA cited unlicensed pay-for-download sites that offer music downloads at a fraction of the cost of authorized content, with many located in Ukraine and Russia. Annual sales for the music industry in 2017 “were roughly 40 percent less than what they were in 1999 and were roughly the same as they were in 2008,” RIAA said. “In the first half of 2018, approximately 90 percent of U.S. record label revenue came from a wide array of digital sources, with 75 percent of our revenue coming from digital streaming sources.”

MPAA applauded the 2018 shuttering of “a ring of piracy services” that operated as 123movies, 123movieshub, gostream and gomovies “following the launch of a criminal investigation in Vietnam and significant industry engagement.” Copycats emerged, it said. New perpetrators were listed in Japan, China, Europe, Russia and Latin America. The group cited illegal IPTV services, which offer hundreds of channels in Europe, Brazil and the U.K.

RIAA said it’s tracking more than 100 stream-ripping sites, which reproduce and distribute content from sites like Facebook and YouTube. The most popular and harmful are Flvto.biz and 2Conv, the group said. RIAA also cited MP3 search and download websites directly or indirectly offering unauthorized on-demand streaming: newalbumreleases.net, rnbxclusive1.com and Leakth.is.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted the impact of illicit streaming devices​​​​​​​, which include media boxes, set-top boxes or other devices that enable users to stream or download unauthorized content: “These devices have become a significant means through which consumers access pirated motion picture and television content.” ISDs are manufactured widely in China, but the problem has spread worldwide, the U.S. Chamber said.