Notorious Markets: A Threat For The US Music Industry
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released its annual ‘notorious markets’ report that lists various illicit online websites and physical markets that pose a significant threat to the U.S. creative communities. According to the report: “Stream ripping is an emerging trend in digital copyright infringement that is increasingly causing substantial economic harm to music creators and undermining legitimate services. Stream ripping is the unauthorized act of converting a file from a licensed streaming site into an unauthorized copy for distribution via download to the requester. Stream ripping often involves violations of terms of use and the circumvention of technological protection measures that legitimate streaming services put in place to protect music content from unauthorized copying and distribution. A study from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry shows that stream ripping is on the rise in the world’s leading music markets. Nearly 30 percent of Internet users obtain unauthorized copies of music from stream ripping services.
This is the first Notorious Markets review in which copyright stakeholders have nominated stream ripping sites for inclusion in the List. Digital music revenues and streaming revenues in particular represent an increasingly important share of music industry growth. In 2015, digital music revenues surpassed physical sales for the first time, and streaming revenues—which grew more than 45 percent—were a major driver behind over all global growth.
Stream ripping is a direct threat to this digital growth as it eliminates the need for users to return to licensed services, thereby depriving artists and record companies of this important revenue source. Pay-for-download sites and legitimate streaming services are simultaneously undermined, and incentives to create and launch new legitimate stream ing services are weakened. In recognition of this growing threat, YOUTUBE-MP3 is added to the Notorious Market List this year as an example of one of the reportedly more popular stream ripping sites”. You can read the whole report here
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Chairman and CEO Cary Sherman offered the following comment on the report:
“We appreciate the important work of Ambassador Froman and his staff in highlighting some of the worst-of-the-worst sites that traffic in unauthorized music and other creative works. The multitude of harms committed by these markets go far beyond the immediate negative impact on the livelihoods of the music community, and include threatening jobs, undermining economic growth, deceiving consumers, and jeopardizing a key U.S. competitive advantage – American creativity.
“In particular, we are especially grateful that USTR has cited illicit stream ripping as a priority issue, specifically calling out youtube-mp3.org. Stream ripping is a considerable and growing threat for the entire music community, with one study estimating a 50% increase in the usage of these sites. This new report rightly shines a much-needed spotlight on this specific type of notorious market, which robs songwriters, artists and labels of the royalties they would have earned from licensed streaming services.
“This report also calls attention to growing concerns regarding the use of reverse proxy services by notorious markets to obscure the location of their hosting provider. These unacceptable tactics employed by many illicit website operators are designed to frustrate detection and enforcement efforts by music creators when their work is being stolen.
“We also note that USTR has appropriately acknowledged progress by markets that have taken positive steps to provide access to legitimate U.S. content. We welcome that progress. We thank USTR and other agencies for their hard work on this report and their continued commitment to intellectual property rights protection and enforcement generally.”
Sources: RIAA / USTR
Image License: Public Domain
