James Gannon's IP Blog

Yesterday, hearings began in the United States House of Representatives on H.R. 3261, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA). Witnesses from the U.S. Library of Congress, Pfizer, the MPAA, MasterCard and the AFL-CIO all voiced support for the Act, which would give judges injunction-granting powers against ISPs to block rogue piracy websites similar to the process that has been in place over a decade under Article 8(3) of the EU Copyright Directive.

Critics of the Act have begun to describe all kinds of unbelievable scenarios that will come to pass should SOPA be enacted; everything from comparisons to the dictators that shut down Internet access nation-wide in the Middle East to predictions that the legislation will be used to block websites like Google, Amazon and Wikipedia.

Trade groups for the recording and motion picture industries have since released their lists of websites they would actually target for court orders should the law be enacted and, unsurprisingly, nobody is seeking to block Wikipedia or Amazon from U.S. Internet users. Instead, these lists of websites include known pirate websites that look very much like the sites that have been targeted through Article 8(3) in Europe. This includes the notorious Pirate Bay, which has at one time or another been ordered to be blocked by ISPs in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

What’s more interesting in the lists of rogue sites cited by the MPAA and the RIAA is the predominance of Canadian-based websites.

Out of the 7 BitTorrent websites listed in the MPAA’s submission, 3 of these are Canadian-based:

Kat.ph – Canada. This website has steadily increased in popularity since 2009 and is currently ranked 323 by Alexa. Originally known as Kickasstorrents.com, the website transitioned to a new domain, Kat.ph, weeks after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized several domains associated with motion picture piracy. Motion pictures represent the largest category of content on this file-sharing website with 975,009 listed available, along with 55,330 titles listed under the Television category. Compete.com estimates 874,966 users visit Kat.ph each month through its servers hosted by Netelligent Hosting in Canada.

IsoHunt.com – Canada. Isohunt.com is the second most popular BitTorrent site on the Internet. The website claims to offer 33.29 million peers, 7.8 million active torrents, and is currently ranked as the 272nd most visited website on the Internet by Alexa.com. Compete.com estimates the website receives 1,225,982 visitors each month. In 2009, a U.S. Court found the operator liable for copyright infringement and issued a permanent injunction against Isohunt.com. The website, however, continues to operate through servers operated by Isohunt in Canada.

Torrentz.eu – Canada. As one of the oldest and most popular BitTorrent websites on the Internet, Torrentz.eu has been in operation for eight years. The website temporarily shut down in 2004 in response to a takedown notice from a copyright holder and then came back online with a more aggressive configuration. This BitTorrent metasearch engine currently searches 32 major BitTorrent websites that include Thepiratebay.org and Kat.ph. Its current Alexa ranking is 147. Compete.com currently estimates that Torrentz.eu receives 1,675,603 visitors each month. Torrentz.eu currently claims to offer 15.9 million active torrent files with over 3.5 million of those files tagged as motion picture content. Previously known as Torrentz.com, the website transitioned to the .EU domain weeks after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seized several domains associated with motion picture piracy. The website is currently hosted through Amanah Tech in Canada.

The RIAA submission also cites the three Canadian sites noted above, but also added Monova.org, with servers in Brampton, Ontario, and Fenopy.eu, with servers in Scarborough, Ontario.