Litecoin wallet list

The copyright cops at the RIAA have released this year's list of "notorious websites" for the US government to chase in the name of preventing piracy. The usual suspects are all there—torrenting sites like the Pirate Bay,cyberlockers overseas and so on. But this year there's a new kid on the block that's caught the recording industry's suspicious eye: bitcoin.

"While there may be a wide range of services dedicated to theft,they share one common effect—they unfairly deny creators the opportunity to generate revenue from the commercial use of their works, " Turkewitz wrote.

The group claims that crypto-currency is helping keep the Pirate Bay afloat by allowing users to covertly donate funds to the website. Bitcoin's peer-to-peer payment system is anonymous and decentralized,making it much harder for law enforcement to seize the cryto-funds that fans send to the site—or to trace those donations back to a real person.

“In April 2013,the site started accepting donations from the public by Bitcoin,a digital currency,which operates using peer-to-peer technology, ” wrote Turkewitz. “There is no central authority or banks involved which makes it very difficult to seize or trade Bitcoin funds. In May 2013,the site also started accepting Litecoin,another peer-to-peer based internet currency.”

In its 10 years in business,the popular BitTorrent site has funded its operation by selling banner ads. But this April,it opened up the door to user donations,provided they were made through digital currencies. But while bitcoin has always been a popular choice for sub-legal online transactions,it's hardly a fail-safe option. Though users adopt pseudonyms to protect their real identity,all transactions are freely available for anyone to see via Blockchain,the cryto-currency's public ledger.