The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represent six major Hollywood studios, has informed the US Government about two dozen piracy-promoting websites it would like to be gone. Alongside with major torrent sites The Pirate Bay and Kickass.to, the list includes – as in previous years – Russia’s leading social network Vkontakte (VK), file-hosting service Rapidgator.net and torrent site Rutracker.org.
VK now fully belongs to Mail.ru Group, a major Russian Internet group listed on the London stock exchange.
In its response to a request from the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), the MPAA targets a wide variety of websites across the world which they claim are promoting the illegal distribution of movies and TV-shows, with what it claims to be declining incomes and lost jobs in the movie industry as a result.
“Websites that traffic in infringing movies, television shows, and other copyrighted content do not harm only the rights holder. Malicious software or malware, which puts Internet users at risk of identity theft, fraud, and other ills, is increasingly becoming a source of revenue for pirate sites,” MPAA writes.
Later this year the US Trade Representative will use the submissions of the MPAA and other parties to make up its final list of piracy havens. The U.S. Government will then alert the countries where these sites are operating from, hoping that local authorities take action.
In response, Vkontakte has requested the US Trade Representative not to include it in its list of copyright violators, as reported by Russian business daily Vedomosti. The company underlines the fact that the social network forbids the downloading of illegal content as part of its user agreement, and that the company cannot be held responsible for the actions of users or external developers who access content via the site. In addition, rights holders can get in touch with the social network’s administrators in order to request the removal of pirated content, Vkontakte representatives argue.
