Andre Yoskowitz
15 Nov 2012 22:13
As they do annually, the RIAA has released their latest list of "notorious" piracy sites.
The list is sent to the Office of the United States Trade Representative and includes large piracy sites and also "accomplice" sites that help users access unauthorized content more easily.
"We want to take a moment to reflect on the fact that thanks in large part to the efforts of the U.S. government in highlighting illicit practices, some of the notorious markets that we identified in last year's submission no longer feature in this filing," added Neil Turkewitz of the RIAA. Some of those names included Megaupload and Demonoid, which is struggling to re-open after being taken down over 3 months ago.
Many fan favorites remained on the list, most notably The Pirate Bay, Iso Hunt, Kickass Torrents, Torrentz, BitSnoop, SumoTorrent, Torrenthound, BTMon, ExtraTorrent, Fenopy, LimeTorrents and TorrentReactor.
Additionally, the RIAA is looking into The Pirate Bay's VPN: "In August 2012, it was reported that The Pirate Bay had launched a new ad-supported VPN service, PrivitizeVPN, the purpose of which is to enable users to 'cloak' their IP address when using file-sharing services to make enforcement more difficult. This service is in its early stage and usage is being monitored."
Canada, Mexico and Spain were once again dubbed "Top Priority Countries," while the U.S. was rated the best for anti-piracy and copyright enforcement.