{"id":87852,"date":"2026-10-15T09:06:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=87852"},"modified":"2026-10-15T09:06:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:06:05","slug":"riaa-flags-annas-archive-and-ai-voice-cloner-to-u-s-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=87852","title":{"rendered":"RIAA Flags Anna\u2019s Archive and AI Voice Cloner to U.S. Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"riaa\"Every year, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR<\/a>) invites rightsholders and other stakeholders to suggest foreign sites and services for its list of \u201cnotorious markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

The annual review doesn\u2019t make any legal findings. Instead, it aims to encourage the listed services, and the countries they operate from, to take proper action against piracy and counterfeiting.<\/p>\n

Last week, the RIAA<\/a> responded with a submission that mostly mentions familiar targets. It lists torrent sites, stream-rippers and cyberlockers, many of which were flagged in previous years. There are some notable newcomers too, including Anna\u2019s Archive.<\/p>\n

Anna\u2019s Archive and the Spotify Scrape<\/h2>\n

In December last year, the shadow library announced<\/a> that it had downloaded 86 million music files from Spotify, plus metadata for 256 million tracks. This prompted an aggressive legal response.<\/p>\n

A few days later, the RIAA coordinated an emergency court action on behalf of its members and Spotify, which resulted in a temporary restraining order<\/a> against the site. Following this order, domain registry PIR suspended the site\u2019s .org domain, and RIAA says Cloudflare also stopped providing services to the shadow library.<\/p>\n

Following this crackdown, Anna\u2019s Archive initially reported that its Spotify metadata torrent was \u201cunavailable until further notice.\u201d In February, however, the site quietly released<\/a> roughly 3 million music files.<\/p>\n

While the torrents for those releases were delisted shortly after, the lawsuit continued, with the labels and Spotify on the winning end.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn April 14, 2026, RIAA and Spotify obtained a $322 million default judgment<\/a> against the unknown operators of Anna\u2019s Archive,\u201d the RIAA writes in its USTR submission.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

From RIAA\u2019s submission<\/em><\/center>
\"riaa<\/center><\/p>\n

Despite the legal victory, the music group stresses that Anna\u2019s Archive remains available through its .gl, .pk and .gd domains.<\/p>\n

The RIAA isn\u2019t the only rightsholder group that flagged the shadow library to the USTR. The Association of American Publishers (AAP<\/a>) also lists Anna\u2019s Archive as a \u201cnotorious\u201d online site (pdf)<\/a>. According to the publishers, traffic to Anna\u2019s Archive\u2019s domains grew 28% despite their enforcement efforts, to an average of 41 million visitors a month.<\/p>\n

The AAP also highlights that Anna\u2019s Archive offers AI developers high-speed access to its collection, in exchange for what the site describes as an \u201centerprise-level donation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voice Clones and Leaks<\/h2>\n

The AI angle also applies to newcomer Lalals, a service operated by a company based in the United Arab Emirates. This AI platform allows users to change a vocal recording to sound like popular artists such as Taylor Swift and Drake, without their permission.<\/p>\n

According to the RIAA, that infringes the artists\u2019 rights of publicity and likely also infringes its members\u2019 rights in the sound recordings that were used to train the voice models.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sound recording artists whose voices are being exploited include Taylor Swift, Drake, Ariana Grande, Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, Chris Martin, and Rihanna, among many others,\u201d RIAA writes. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Lalals<\/em><\/center>
\"lalals<\/center><\/p>\n

In the cyberlocker category, meanwhile, Mega is a familiar target. The European Commission added<\/a> the file-hosting service to its own piracy watch list in 2022, and the RIAA now lists it among the notorious markets it wants the USTR to include.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Mega removes content that is specifically reported by rights holders, it does not implement effective measures to prevent the re-upload of infringing material or deter repeat infringement,\u201d the RIAA writes. <\/p>\n

RIAA stresses that users of the platform continue to share pre-release music and AI-related content, such as vocal models and cloned recordings. On what grounds Mega is required to prevent reuploads is not mentioned by the music group.<\/p>\n

Several new cyberlockers are flagged for their role in pre-release piracy as well. These include Gofile, Sendgb and Imgur.gg.<\/p>\n

Links to these services are reportedly shared on music leak forums, and the RIAA mentions Leaked.cx by name in the entries for Sendgb, Imgur.gg and Pixeldrain, which was already included in last year\u2019s submission.<\/p>\n

This Imgur.gg hosting platform doesn\u2019t appear to be affiliated with the popular image host Imgur. When we checked, the site didn\u2019t list any company details, but it did promote a music streaming app \u201cBuilt by the imgur.gg team.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Imgur.gg<\/em><\/center>
\"imgur.gg<\/center><\/p>\n

RIAA goes on to mention that Telegram and Discord remain the primary mechanisms through which pre-release music is distributed. That accusation isn\u2019t new, as the passage is nearly identical to last year\u2019s submission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Familiar Names, Familiar Words<\/h2>\n

Many other entries are familiar as well. The Pirate Bay, 1337x and RuTracker are listed in the torrent category, Rapidgator and Krakenfiles are flagged as cyberlockers, and Y2mate and Savefrom remain in the stream-ripping section.<\/p>\n

Krakenfiles is still listed, even though the RIAA notes that it removed its upload functionality this year.<\/p>\n

Whether any of the newly nominated sites will make it onto the USTR\u2019s final list has yet to be seen. Last year, the USTR included<\/a> several of the RIAA\u2019s picks, including Y2mate, Savefrom and Krakenfiles.<\/p>\n

Before the USTR makes its decision, the sites and services mentioned in the submissions can respond with rebuttals of their own, which Mega plans to do.<\/p>\n

Responding to our request for comment, the company says that it removes reported content and permanently closes the accounts of repeat infringers, as is required under U.S. law.<\/p>\n

According to Mega, infringing activity represents a small fraction of the overall use of the service. Last year, it processed close to 3.9 million copyright takedown requests and removed links represented around 0.002% of the more than 208 billion files stored by its 338 million registered users. <\/p>\n

In the same period, 5,627 accounts were suspended under its \u201cthree strikes in six months\u201d repeat infringer policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cMega respectfully disagrees with the RIAA\u2019s characterization, which fundamentally mischaracterizes the nature of the service, and will be filing its own submission with USTR setting out why its inclusion on the Notorious Markets List would be unwarranted,\u201d Mega\u2019s Legal and Compliance Manager Csaba Szab\u00f3 informs TorrentFreak.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

The RIAA\u2019s full 2026 list of \u201cnotorious\u201d sites and services can be found below, and the full report is available here (pdf)<\/a>. The cursive listings marked (new) are newcomers and those that were removed are crossed out. The RIAA stresses that this list is a non-exhaustive overview.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stream-Ripping Sites<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013 Y2mate.gs (formerly y2mate.nu)
\n\u2013 Savefrom.net
\n\u2013 Ssyoutube.com
\n\u2013 Notube.net
\n\u2013 Y2mate.is (new)<\/em>
\n\u2013 Snaptube app and related domains<\/s><\/p>\n

Music Download\/Streaming Sites<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013 Mp3.pm (new)<\/em>
\n\u2013 Tubidy.cool (previously listed as a stream-ripper)
\n\u2013 Scnlog.me
\n\u2013 newalbumreleases.net<\/s>
\n\u2013 waploaded.com<\/s>
\n\u2013 hiphopkit.com<\/s><\/p>\n

BitTorrent Indexing Sites<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013 ThePirateBay.org
\n\u2013 1337x.to
\n\u2013 Rutracker.org<\/p>\n

Cyberlockers<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013 Rapidgator.net
\n\u2013 Krakenfiles.com
\n\u2013 Chomikuj.pl
\n\u2013 Pixeldrain.com
\n\u2013 Pillows.su
\n\u2013 Mega.nz (new)<\/em>
\n\u2013 Gofile.io (new)<\/em>
\n\u2013 Sendgb.com (new)<\/em>
\n\u2013 Imgur.gg (new)<\/em>
\n\u2013 Ddownload.com (new)<\/em><\/p>\n

Additional Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013 Anna\u2019s Archive (annas-archive.gl, .pk, .gd) (new)<\/em>
\n\u2013 Lalals.com (new)<\/em>
\n\u2013 Other intermediaries: Telegram and Discord
\n\u2013 Bulletproof ISPs: PRQ, Frantech Solutions\/BuyVM\/PONYNET, DDoS Guard<\/s>
\n\u2013 Domain Name Registrars: NameCheap, Tucows and others<\/s><\/p>\n

Physical Markets<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013 Counterfeit CDs and vinyl from China and Russia, sold through Amazon, eBay, Vinted, Marktplaats, Leboncoin and Wallapop (new)<\/em><\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) invites rightsholders and other stakeholders to suggest foreign sites and services for its list of \u201cnotorious markets.\u201d The annual review doesn\u2019t make any legal findings. Instead, it aims to encourage the listed services, and the countries they operate from, to take proper action against piracy and counterfeiting. Last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}