The record industry has filed its annual submission with suggested inclusions for the US government’s ‘notorious markets’ report, which provides an opportunity for the record companies to set out their top piracy gripes of the moment.
The submission names various websites and online platforms which, it says, “harm US artists, songwriters, record labels and music publishing companies by disseminating music without authorisation” and “artificially distorting the market value of the music”.
Interestingly, unlike in last year’s submission, unlicensed generative AI platforms - despite being the subject of much debate and some lawsuits - aren’t included in the piracy gripe list, which is compiled by the Recording Industry Association Of America. The focus this time is on conventional piracy platforms like stream-ripping sites, BitTorrent indexing sites, unlicensed download and streaming platforms, and cyberlockers used for storing and accessing unlicensed music files.
One of those cyber lockers, Krakenfiles, acts as “a source of data comprising unauthorised music which is ingested to develop AI artist vocal models”, the submission claims. It also “hosts outputs comprising vocal clones which infringe the rights of member companies and/or their artists”. However, the labels also criticise Krakenfiles for facilitating the storage and sharing of unlicensed music more generally.
The notorious markets report is produced by the US Trade Representative and its purpose is to identify piracy enablers outside the US, in order to inform the American government’s trade talks. The three generative AI platforms currently being sued by the American music industry for copyright infringement. - Udio, Suno and Anthropic - are all US-based. But concerns have also been raised about AI platforms that are based elsewhere in the world.
Indeed, in its notorious markets submission last year, the RIAA raised specific concern about AI platforms that were being used to generate unapproved vocal clones. It specifically criticised UK-based Voicify, now known as Jammable, which UK record industry trade body BPI threatened with legal action earlier this year. However, the USTR didn’t include vocal clone sites in its final report, so perhaps the RIAA has decided this is not the forum for debating the legalities of music AI.
Alongside the stream-rippers, BitTorrent sites, illegal download and streaming services and piracy-enabling cyberlockers, the RIAA also criticises a number of ‘bulletproof’ internet service providers. Those are companies that provide hosting, and other internet services, which support various illegal activities through, in the trade body’s words, “considerable leniency in the kinds of materials they permit to be uploaded and distributed via their networks”.
From a copyright perspective, these are internet companies that “do not respond to notices of infringement or warning letters that the ISP is hosting and supporting known infringing sites”. Specific bulletproof internet providers of concern include PRQ in Sweden, which was created by two founders of The Pirate Bay. Their original piracy creation, by the way, still gets its listing in the BitTorrent section, it being a long-standing feature of the music industry’s annual notorious markets submissions.
In its final section, the submission turns to physical product, criticising various outfits in China and Russia which manufacture and sell counterfeit CDs and vinyl albums, most of which are then sold via online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Shopee. “eBay and Shopee’s global platforms have had the largest number of counterfeit vinyl and CD listings”, the filing reveals.