RIAA released its annual list of leading copyright infringement offenders. The Notorious Markets List includes several familiar operations, including continued concerns about stream-ripping and illicit activities within legitimate mobile apps. According to the RIAA, several stream-ripping sites amassed billions of visits in the past year. The organization has been taking legal action against some of the offenders, and did successfully secure a takedown against DBR.ee earlier this year.
This year’s list included a new wrinkle in sources of copyright infringement. The report made special note of a messaging app called Telegram. The RIAA claimed that the app’s makers were not doing enough to prevent copyrighted content from being shared by its users.
“Telegram offers many user-created channels which are dedicated to the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted recordings, with some channels focused on particular genres or artists,” the group said. “Telegram itself hosts many of the copyrighted recordings made available through these channels and the RIAA has sent DMCA notices to Telegram containing over 18,000 instances of copyrighted recordings offered without authorization through these channels. Telegram claims that it forwards our notices to the channel operators.”