14 DAY TRIAL // The Motion Picture Association of America(MPAA) handed over a list of websites which they consider to be the most notorious piracy sites to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) which requested the names for the development of future legislation.
According to TorrentFreak, US lawmakers recently introduced a bill that wants to make sure certain filesharing sites will become illegal.
“The rogue overseas marketplaces highlighted in today’s filing are a direct threat to our community and the millions of hard-working Americans that rely on it for their livelihoods,” the MPAA writes in a statement.
“The MPAA commends and greatly appreciates the USTR’s recognition of the damage inflicted by these illicit markets on US global competitiveness and we applaud their work to protect American jobs.”
The list provided by MPAA appoints the locations, splitting them into categories. The Peer-to-Peer Networks & Torrent Portals category mentions some names that probably won't surprise anyone, such as The Pirate Bay, Russian torrent portal Rutracker, KickAssTorrent, Demonoid, IsoHunt, Torrentz.eu from Canada, Btjunkie and Xunlei.com from China.
The Infringing Download and Streaming Hubs classification contains Megaupload, Putlocker from the UK, Wupload, South Korean Simdisk and Russia's most popular social networking site Vkontakte.
Russian Video2k, Letmewatchthis from Germany, Movie2k from Romania, Seriesyonkis and 3000filmes are named as linking websites that pose a threat to the media industry.
Finally, physical markets from Ukraine, Brazil, Indonesia, Northern Ireland, Russia and China are appointed as offering consumers “burned or pressed infringing optical discs.”
“Many of the markets discussedbelow are particularly challenging for rights holders because of the strong connections withorganized criminal syndicates,” reads the statement.
All of the names mentioned above have been highly controversial lately so it's not hard to guess why they've ended up on the list, but one peculiar absentee is RapidShare, a website that usually tops any other filesharing service.
It will remain to be seen how the government will integrate the list in their future plans to put an end to piracy and how effective the proposals will turn out to be.