by SHANE SINNOTT

On the morning of May 19, the RIAA and a U.S. Congress committee called a press conference to announce the six worst copyright-offending websites in the world, music-wise, a group that is already being referred to as an “Axis of P2P Evil” (which is weird because a lot of them aren’t p2p sites). Naturally, this deserves some investigation here at the Load-down—I can’t let this type of publicity pass unnoticed. The list: thepiratebay.org, isohunt.com, RapidShare.com, MP3Fiesta.com, RMX4U.com and Baidu.com. I’m more interested in the last three, ’cause everyone knows about the first.

MP3Fiesta.com is an MP3 “store” based in the Ukraine that, according to the RIAA, is not legal. They’ve been prevented from accepting credit card payments a few times, and the general consensus is that they are not properly reimbursing for the stuff they sell. Sketchy all around. RMX4U.com, based in Luxembourg, bills itself as the “biggest community for black music in the World.” The content is written in a mix of German and English, reflecting, I guess, that contemporary R&B is a universal language. It ain’t fancy, but if you want free music, it does the trick—you just sign up for a free account, and with it you can view a bunch of forums where users post MP3 files. It’s searchable, and filled with individual songs and mixtapes of the newest R&B. If this genre is your bag, this site should do it for you.

Baidu.com is the Google of China. It has a powerful MP3 search tool (mp3.baidu.com) that you can use, provided you can navigate a website written in a symbol-based language thousands of years old. Here is a good little blog entry that explains how you use it if you’re an English-speaker, and you’ll learn a little of the Chinese language along the way—surely a useful skill given their inevitable ascension to the world’s sole superpower: bit.ly/cvGyJH.

I leave the final word, though, to the ever-hyperbolic RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol: “An Internet of chaos may meet a utopian vision but surely undermines the societal values of safe and secure families and job and revenue-creating commerce.”