A notorious market is a website or physical market where, according to the

Office of the United States Trade Representative The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is an agency of the United States federal government responsible for developing and promoting United States foreign trade policies. Part of the Executive Office of the President, it ...

(USTR), large-scale

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

infringement takes place. Officially termed Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy, the USTR has generated a yearly list of such notorious markets since 2006 with input from various industry groups.

History

Since 2006, the members of the

International Intellectual Property Alliance The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) is a coalition of five trade associations representing American companies that produce copyright-protected material, including computer software, films, television programs, music, books, and ...

in conjunction with the

has annually filed a list of Notorious Markets as a part of their Special 301 Report to the U.S. federal government. It lists virtual markets (websites) and physical markets outside of the US where large scale

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

takes place and recommends trade sanctions for countries with weak copyright protection enforcement. Since 2010 the list is separately issued as a part of an out-of-cycle review between the main report submissions. Whilst the list of markets does not directly form national trade policy, the report says "The United States encourages the responsible authorities to step up efforts to combat piracy and counterfeiting in these and similar markets." In January 2025, USTR annual report on notorious markets again listed the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

(PRC) as "the number one source of counterfeit products in the world," with 90 percent of U.S. Customs and Border Protection seizures of counterfeit or pirated products coming from the PRC or Hong Kong.

List creation process

The notorious market list is created following input from the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA) and

Motion Picture Association The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the Major film studios, five major film studios of the Cinema of the United States, United States, the Major film studios#Mini-majors, mini-major Amazon MGM Stud ...

(MPAA), as well as other industry groups. The goal of the list is to encourage governments to take action against intellectual property violations, as well as encouraging markets to reform. Sites include torrenting websites such as

The Pirate Bay The Pirate Bay, commonly abbreviated as TPB, is a free searchable online index of Film, movies, music, video games, Pornographic film, pornography and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank , The Pirate Bay facilitates the connection ...

, stream ripping sites, and sites for cheating in online games.

List

Reports

References

Reports

In the text these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡): {{reflist, group=‡ 2006 establishments in the United States

History

List creation process

List

Reports

See also

References

Reports