Andre Yoskowitz
20 May 2010 14:23
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has announced, jointly with the Congressional members of the International Anti-Piracy Caucus (IAPC) the first ever Notorious Illegal Sites list, calling out the six most "notorious" sites used for unauthorized downloads of music, movies and other copyrighted works.
Additionally, the groups named Russia, Mexico, China, Canada and Spain as the "Top Priority Countries" for lax anti-piracy efforts.
The sites to make the list are: China’s Baidu, Canada’s IsoHunt, Ukraine’s mp3fiesta, Germany’s RapidShare, Luxembourg’s RMX4U.com and Sweden’s The Pirate Bay.
The groups say these sites and their services provide little other uses than an exchange of unauthorized copyrighted works.
"The release of this report casts a damning spotlight once again on several nations with lax copyright protections and websites that brazenly traffic in copyright theft. I'm particularly struck by the IAPC decision to identify significant global websites that facilitate massive theft; theft that destroys jobs and cuts short the dreams of creators who find it more difficult to attract the capital they need to build their careers. Just last week, five years after the 9-0 Supreme Court landmark decision against Grokster, we saw a federal judge rule against the most significant theft machine in this country – LimeWire. While it took some time for the judicial process to work, we did see that in a nation of laws, those who set up elegant schemes to profit from theft will be stopped. There is basic accountability, although much work needs to be done to achieve a fully accountable Internet space," says Mitch Bainwol, Chairman and CEO, RIAA.
The RIAA actually went as far as to say Baidu was the worst offender on the list.