'The US Piracy Watchlist is a Marketing Campaign for Pirate Sites'
MrPlow writes:
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
'The US Piracy Watchlist is a Marketing Campaign for Pirate Sites':
Every year, major copyright industry groups prepare a list of the most notorious pirate sites, which are publicly reported to the US Trade Representative (USTR).
[...] A few days ago we spotted a late submission for the 2021 notorious markets list. This comment was submitted by former criminal defense practitioner Jim Zhou who's based in Las Vegas. He is also critical of the annual list, but for a very different reason.
According to Zhou, the USTR's notorious market list is counterproductive. Instead of effectively stopping piracy, it offers "reliable advertising space and exposure" to pirate services, which runs contrary to its intended goal.
"The purpose of this comment is to highlight the nature of this very organization and this regulation as a facilitator of the traffic it purportedly is attempting to enjoin," he writes in his letter to the USTR.
[...] The challenge for pirate site operators, according to Zhou, is that there are limited means to promote themselves. "That, however, is where the USTR comes in."
[...] Pirate sites can't easily show how trustworthy they are in terms of longevity, payout, and reliability, Zhou notes. However, the annual USTR watch list, which is widely covered in the media, does that for them.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.