USTR Releases 2025 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy

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  • USTR Releases 2025 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy
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WASHINGTON – Today, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) released the findings of its 2025 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy (the Notorious Markets List).  The Notorious Markets List highlights online and physical markets that reportedly engage in or facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy.

“With the United States co-hosting the FIFA World Cup, we are particularly attuned to sales of counterfeit merchandise and illicit streaming of sports broadcasts,” said Ambassador Jamieson Greer.  “Not only do such activities amount to intellectual property theft, they also harm consumers, such as through purchasing substandard goods that can present health or safety concerns or downloading malware when visiting sites engaged in these activities.”

This year’s Notorious Markets List’s issue focus section examines piracy of live sports broadcasts and the challenges of protecting copyright in the digital age.  The global nature of sophisticated copyright piracy operations requires international cooperation for effective enforcement.  USTR calls on trading partners to undertake policy reforms to strengthen intellectual property protections, such as joining and fully implementing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, which provide key protections for copyright and related rights in the digital environment.

The 2025 Notorious Markets List identifies 37 online markets and 32 physical markets that are reported to engage in or facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy.  The Notorious Markets List highlights both widespread and evolving trends in counterfeiting and piracy, and identifies a wide variety of sites, including e-commerce and social commerce sites, as well as “bulletproof” hosting providers, streaming sites, or other piracy-enabling sites for copying and distributing content.

The complete 2025 Notorious Markets List can be found here.

Background

USTR first identified notorious markets in the Special 301 Report in 2006.  Since February 2011, USTR annually publishes the Notorious Markets List, separately from the Special 301 Report, to increase public awareness and help market operators and governments prioritize intellectual property enforcement efforts that protect American businesses and their workers.

The Notorious Markets List does not constitute an exhaustive list of all markets reported to deal in or facilitate commercial-scale copyright piracy or trademark counterfeiting, nor does it reflect findings of legal violations or the U.S. Government’s analysis of the general intellectual property protection and enforcement climate in the country concerned.  Such analysis is contained in the annual Special 301 Report issued at the end of April each year.

USTR initiated the 2025 Notorious Markets List Review on August 18, 2025, through publication in the Federal Register of a request for public comments.  The request for comments and the public’s responses are online at www.regulations.gov, Docket number USTR-2025-0018.

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