MBW Explains is a series of analytical features in which we explore the context behind major music industry talking points – and suggest what might happen next. Only MBW+ subscribers have unlimited access to these articles. MBW Explains is supported by Reservoir.
Every year, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) releases a list of “notorious markets for counterfeiting and piracy,” in which it identifies the largest pipelines of piracy in the world today, from websites where users swap pirated movies and music to suburban flea markets rife with counterfeit goods.
And every year, the USTR takes submissions from businesses and organizations affected by piracy. Among them, not surprisingly, is the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
This year’s submission from the RIAA singled out messaging apps Discord and Telegram as having become major hubs of music piracy.
By turning a blind eye to organized networks that sell pre-release recordings, the two platforms have become the “primary mechanisms through which pre-release music is distributed without authorization,” the RIAA said in its submission, which can be read in full here.
“While Telegram and Discord have been largely responsive to takedown notices sent about specific infringements, it is unclear what steps, if any, they take to limit or prevent the ongoing abuse of the platforms for illegal pre-release distribution.”
This year’s submission from the RIAA also adds another piracy threat to copyright and trademarks – and no, it’s not AI (although the RIAA has previously raised the alarm about AI’s potential to rip off artists). Instead, this year’s submission shines a spotlight on… bootleg vinyl.
Yes, with vinyl records experiencing a renaissance, it was only a matter of time before IP pirates decided to muscle in on the action.
Here are three other trends in music piracy (beyond Discord and Telegram) about which the RIAA is raising the alarm – including some sobering data about the impact of digital piracy on recorded music revenues.
Credit: Przemek Klos/Shutterstock
1. Bootleg vinyl and CDs
China and Russia have become major sources of bootleg CDs and vinyl, with pirate manufacturers using e-commerce platforms to sell to consumers all over the world.
“In some cases, Russian and Chinese sellers will sell directly on retail platforms, shipping the goods to consumers from Russia or China,” the RIAA wrote. “In other cases, the principals behind the Chinese and Russian counterfeits sell to third-party sellers on platforms that may or may not know they are buying and reselling counterfeits.”
Particularly worrying is that these bootlegs are often “high quality products made to closely resemble authentic ones,” and consumers may not be able to tell the difference, the RIAA noted.
At times, these CDs and vinyls are “best of” and “greatest hits” collections never released by labels, and at other times they may be vinyl or CD versions of albums that were never officially released in those formats, the RIAA said. Unauthorized copies of boxed set collections are becoming increasingly common as well.
This trade wouldn’t be possible for major decentralized online retail platforms such as Amazon, Marktplaats, and Leboncoin, all of which the RIAA report identifies by name and says they are conduits for “massive quantities” of counterfeit goods.
“Consumers are paying full price for counterfeit offerings appearing alongside legitimate offerings, resulting in one-for-one displacements of legitimate sales.”
RIAA submission to USTR
However, the RIAA singles out eBay and Vinted as the platforms with the greatest number of counterfeit and CD listings.
“Vinted has become a destination platform for illicit vinyl sellers,” the RIAA wrote. “Originally created as [a] clothing resale platform, the volume of infringing vinyl listings has reached epidemic proportions.”
Despite efforts to remove counterfeits from the platform, “sellers are allowed to continually relist counterfeit titles, and it appears the platform takes no meaningful action against repeat infringers,” the RIAA said.
“Consumers are paying full price for counterfeit offerings appearing alongside legitimate offerings, resulting in one-for-one displacements of legitimate sales.”
The RIAA would like to see Vinted and other platforms start to pre-screen their retailers “to ensure they have legitimate sources of supply.”
2. Stream-ripping and cyberlockers are still a problem
The rise of legal music streaming services like Spotify has taken a lot of the wind out of the sails of music piracy, but piracy still remains – and it’s evolving.
Music pirates have moved beyond basic illicit file-sharing programs (like what Napster used to be) and are finding all sorts of new ways to deliver unauthorized content.
One such method that the RIAA singled out in its new submission is cyberlockers, also sometimes known as file-hosting services. These are what they sound like: Simple websites where anyone can upload a file and share a link to it. The problem is, some of these cyberlockers have become infamous for turning a blind eye to pirated content hosted on their servers.
The RIAA identifies Krakenfiles, Rapidgator, Chomikuj, Pixeldrain, and Pillowcase as being among these notorious file-hosters, but there are many other such sites out there, making enforcement of copyright on these services a game of whack-a-mole.
Unlike legitimate cloud storage services, these cyberlockers “are all about maximizing and monetizing traffic to their service. Nothing draws traffic like popular copyrighted content that can be downloaded for free. Thus, their business model is, at its heart, the distribution of unlicensed content,” the RIAA wrote.
“To a limited extent, rights holders can attempt to tackle these infringements by sending takedown notices to the site operators. However, this often entails monitoring thousands of third-party link resources – e.g., blogs, forum sites, and search engines – to locate the information that is needed to notify the locker of infringements occurring on their own services.”
“Stream ripping continues to be the most prevalent form of online music piracy.”
RIAA submission to USTR
These services are in a “much better position” to identify infringing content themselves, the RIAA noted, “if they really had an interest in conducting their business legally.”
Stream-ripping is another tool that enables music piracy. This typically involves a website where a user can type in the URL of a streamed audio or video file (most commonly a YouTube file) and then download the audio or video to their device.
The music industry has an initiative in place to report stream-ripping sites to search engines, so they can be demoted in search results. “However, ripper site operators have responded to this effort by creating new domain names to operate through that allows them to reappear at the top of search results,” the RIAA said.
The submission identified some common “brands” of stream-ripping services, some of which rotate through different domain names, among them Y2mate, Savefrom, SSyoutube, Tubidy, Notube and Snaptube.
“Stream ripping continues to be the most prevalent form of online music piracy,” the RIAA noted.
Credit: S_Photo/Shutterstock
3. The recorded music business is still smaller than it was before digital piracy
As is often the case with its submissions to the USTR, the RIAA attempts to paint a picture of the damage being done to the music industry through piracy. This year’s report pulls out some alarming numbers.
“In inflation-adjusted dollars, the 2024 US sound recording revenues were still far below the peak US sound recording revenues that were reached in 1999,” the submission stated.
Adjusted to today’s dollars, US recorded music revenues were over $26 billion in 1999, compared to $17.7 billion in 2024.
“This period of time coincides with the rise of broadband and digital piracy generally, as well as the later rise of the sale and importation of foreign-made, counterfeit physical music products through e-commerce platforms and the rise of stream ripping,” the RIAA noted.
The submission also cited research from IFPI showing that 29% of the population uses some form of copyright infringement to listen to music, with that number rising to 43% among 16-24-year-olds.
All of which points to an inescapable conclusion: The age of Spotify and the other music streaming platforms hasn’t actually ended the age of music piracy, and the cost of that piracy continues to be counted in the billions.
Reservoir (Nasdaq: RSVR) is a publicly traded, global independent music company with operations across music publishing, recorded music, and artist management.Music Business Worldwide
