"anti-piracy" law in Russia. The Russian received a term and a millionth fine for "piracy. Negative consequences of the law
The current law on amendments to legislative acts Russian Federation on the protection of intellectual rights in information and telecommunication networks (No. 187-FZ) entered into force on July 2, 2013.
Now the law №187-FZ applies only to video content. According to the law, the copyright holder can apply to and demand, as an interim measure, to block the controversial content for 15 days.
At the same time, it notifies the hosting provider, who has one working day to contact the owner of the Internet resource and demand from him to remove the content. The Internet resource is obliged to remove illegal content within three days.
If this does not happen, the provider must block access to the site three days after receiving a notification from Roskomnadzor. If the hosting provider does not respond to notifications, then the blocking is made by the Internet provider or telecom operator. While the interim measures are in effect (15 days), the copyright holder must file a claim with the Moscow City Court to protect his intellectual rights.
How the "anti-piracy" law will work from May 1, 2015
Three key amendments to be made to the current law (No. 187-FZ):
1. The law will now apply to all types of content (music, lyrics, software), excluding photographs.
2. A mechanism for pre-trial settlement of disputes between copyright holders and Internet sites is being introduced. Every website is now required to publish its contacts so that content rights holders can send them a request to remove illegally posted content.
3. The second decision of the Moscow City Court, concerning the repeated violation of the law by the same Internet resource in favor of one plaintiff, will lead to an indefinite blocking of this site. The register of sites blocked in this way will be maintained by Roskomnadzor.
Matvey, Director of External Communications of Rambler & Co, does not expect any consequences for the holding's Internet sites after the new amendments to the anti-piracy law come into force.
“We can expect an increase in the number of claims from copyright holders and their representatives against those resources that post content in violation of copyright. But everything will only show arbitrage practice, namely, how the Moscow City Court will cope with the load, ”says Alekseev.
“The rules that establish the specifics of regulation in relation to the owners of sites with user-generated content create both advantages and additional difficulties for them compared to the rest of the Internet industry, therefore, to say that the clause on indefinite blocking is a danger to the operation of LiveJournal and others like it sites, it is impossible, "- said Deputy Director of the Legal Department of Rambler & Co Evgenia Pleshkova.
However, some experts believe that the amendments that come into force may have a negative impact on the Russian Internet business.
“In accordance with the amendments to the law, copyright holders gain too much power over the sites, while they will not be able to influence the pirates,” says the chief analyst of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications. - Instead, the changes will hit legal projects and open great opportunities for a non-competitive fight.
Also, web resources that are not engaged in piracy on purpose, but are not able to quickly solve problems with the placement of pirated content or links to it, will also suffer ”.
“There will also be erroneous closings of resources, since blocking can be made not only by URL, but also by IP, which means that several law-abiding sites may suffer at once. However, the IP can be changed even within the same company that provides servers for hosting the site, but the alphabetic web address cannot be changed so easily, says Ghazaryan. - The identifier of the web resource that will be indicated in the claim will be included in the register. It is correct to specify the URL, since it uniquely identifies the blocked resource, however, the plaintiff himself may not understand the technical nuances, and the provider may not have the technical ability to block user requests by letter addresses, then the blocking will occur by IP with all the ensuing problems for all clients of this providers with one IP ”.
There is a high probability that the lawsuits prepared in large quantities even before the introduction of the amendments to the law (we already know about a list of 700 sites), which, with a high probability, will be filed in the middle of next week, may cause noticeable discomfort for a large number of Russian Internet users. , who do not understand, as the studies of RAEC show, the difference between legal and illegal content and are not interested in the legal intricacies of the struggle of copyright holders against piracy.
Pirate sites themselves will not suffer, since their models of attracting users and monetizing have long been built taking into account constant blocking, changing IP addresses and domain names, and illegal status.
Major torrent trackers that until recently used frontier legal status posting links to illegal content, after the first blockings, demonstrated that they can very quickly restore their functionality and accessibility to users.
An illustrative example is the largest Russian torrent tracker Torrents.ru, which changed the name and letter address on Rutracker.org, but retained the interface, appearance, a base of links and messages in the forum, as well as e-mail addresses of registered users, which made it possible to quickly restore the audience after changing the domain and jurisdiction.
The anti-piracy law, which allows copyright holders to block pirated sites on the Russian Internet, may be adopted as early as the spring session of the State Duma. But it will not yet apply to music, said two members of the working group under the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, which is developing amendments to this law.
This information "Vedomosti" was confirmed by representatives of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Ministry of Culture. According to Deputy Minister of Communications Alexei Volin, the amendments may be adopted this year, but they will apply to books, software and films. And music, according to him, the law will begin to protect from January 1, 2016. This is due to the complexities of administration, Volin adds.
“We have always advocated the phased introduction of anti-piracy measures,” says Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Ivliev. Music will come under the law in a year and a half. This is due to the large volume of music files on the Internet, which, according to Ivliev, can lead to a huge amount of controversy.
Initially, the anti-piracy law applied only to films and TV series: it was adopted after a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Russian filmmakers. They complained to him about internet piracy, and Putin promised to help eradicate it. But soon after the law was passed, representatives from other industries (musicians, software makers and book publishers) resented that the state decided to protect only one type of content.
Then the Ministry of Culture developed its own bill, which expanded the law to other types of content, and the deputy Sergei Zheleznyak - his own. The project of the Ministry of Culture, introducing a pre-trial procedure for resolving disputes about piracy, initially assumed the introduction of this regulation for music not immediately, but 12 months after the anti-piracy law came into force. There were no such restrictions in the Zheleznyak project.
On behalf of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Ministry of Culture developed a joint draft of a new anti-piracy law, which was submitted to the government last week. Now officials expect to combine their project with Zheleznyak's amendments. The final text should be adopted by the State Duma in the near future - in the spring session.
Sergei Plugotarenko, director of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, says that the decision of the working group fully reflects the position of the Internet industry. There are orders of magnitude more complaints about music files than about films, and this can seriously worsen the work of Internet companies, he said. “We agree to expand the law to other types of content, but only if a register of copyright holders is created - as prescribed by the law,” he adds.
“The music industry as a whole supports the anti-piracy law: it gives authors real leverage in the fight against illegal distribution of content,” says Leonid Agronov, general director of the National Federation of the Music Industry (NFMI, representing the interests of Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music, etc.). “But the musicians, at the insistence of the Internet industry, will now have to wait several years with their claims. The pirate sites will breathe a sigh of relief - they got an additional vacation, they have another year and a half of serene business on someone else's music. " It is strange that large Internet portals did not prepare for anti-piracy measures in advance, because they have been distributing illegal music for years, he points out and expects that serious players will not wait a year and a half to legalize their business.
MOSCOW, December 28 - RIA Novosti. The idea of the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky to tighten control over piracy is correct, however, it is likely that difficulties will arise with its implementation against the background of high prices for content and the absence of a department that will undertake to control the download of unlicensed content, said a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy. information technology and connections Vadim Dengin.
Dengin believes that it is necessary to understand who will be responsible for the search for the violator. "If this is Roskomnadzor, then there are now a large number of tasks that we have obliged the department to fulfill by the legislation of the Russian Federation. Therefore, I am not sure that Roskomnadzor will have enough strength for this. To create a service that will deal with this is budget money that we have already cut . It seems to me that there will be no separate funds for the creation of such a service, "the deputy added.
"In Russia, we have been downloading for free all our lives. I would not sharply oblige everyone to pay for content. Copyright holders should give prices to citizens that would make people think about refusing to download free content. This will be a step towards legalizing content," Dengin summed up.
The text of amendments to the anti-piracy law has been submitted to the State Duma, prepared for the second reading by United Russia deputy Sergei Zheleznyak, deputies Dmitry Volkov, Zugura Rakhmatullina and others. The anti-piracy law, adopted last year, presupposes the blocking of sites with pirated films and series by Russian operators. And this bill expands the effect of this law to other types of content - music, books, software, etc. However, the law will begin to protect music later - from January 1, 2016.
The State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications approved the bill for adoption in the second reading.
The parliamentary amendments, in particular, introduce into the legislation the concept of persistent violators of anti-piracy legislation: for example, if a site has repeatedly and grossly violated exclusive rights to works, then it is subject to a complete ban on the territory of Russia, follows from the text of the bill. This means that access to the site may be closed, even if its owners have removed the content at the request of the copyright holders. But such a decision can only be made by a court decision. That is, popular torrent trackers and other sites that allow you to download content can forever be blacklisted by Roskomnadzor.
Also, the bill introduces a pre-trial procedure for resolving disputes related to piracy on the Internet. This procedure was developed by the Ministry of Culture last year. The law, if passed, will oblige website owners to respond to requests from copyright holders and remove their content from their resources without a court decision - they can ignore the requirements only if they have evidence of the legality of posting content. If the site owners violate the pre-trial dispute settlement procedure, then they will face a fine of 150,000-300,000 rubles. for citizens, 300,000-600,000 rubles. - for officials and 0.5-1 million rubles. - for legal entities.
Another interesting amendment that the deputies want to make to the Code of Administrative Offenses. The wording on the fine for violation of copyright and related rights "for the purpose of generating income" is removed from Article 7.12 of the Administrative Code. That is, it turns out that for the placement of films, music, software, any users and site owners can be fined, even if they do not earn on piracy. This is so, confirms the boss. legal department Of the Coordination Center for the national domain of the Internet Sergey Kopylov: since the qualifying sign of generating income is removed, then any, even indirect, violation of copyright and related rights can be punished under this article with a fine.
Irina Levova, an analyst with the Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC), is disappointed with the second version of the anti-piracy bill. The authors of the project, she said, repeatedly involved the Internet industry in the discussion of this text, but the opinion of Internet companies as a result was practically ignored, she complains. "There were three main platforms for discussing the text - a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, an expert council under the" open government ", the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications," Levova says.
"At all these meetings, proposals were made by copyright holders and the Internet industry. In the final version of the text, only the wishes of copyright holders and the Ministry of Culture were taken into account: in the test there were requirements to block hyperlinks, administrative responsibility for violation of the extrajudicial order of blocking remained, the criterion of" repeated "violations remained, which, as known from the Civil Code, is equal to two violations, that is, in fact - two hyperlinks. The imbalance of these proposals was pointed out by the Ministry of Economic Development, experts of the "open government", RAEC. I do not understand why so many smart people spent their work time to these, as it turned out, senseless discussions, "Levova sums up.
The anti-piracy law will not yet extend its effect to music, it is reported " Vedomosti"with reference to two members of the working group under the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, which is developing amendments to this law.
This information was confirmed by representatives of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Ministry of Culture. Deputy Minister of Communications Alexei Volin noted that the amendments may be adopted this year, but they will only apply to books, programs and films. According to him, the law will begin to protect music from January 1, 2016, which is associated with the difficulties of administration. Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Ivliev stressed: "We have always advocated the phased introduction of anti-piracy measures." Therefore, music will come under the law in a year and a half, due to the large volume of music files on the Internet. Ivliev believes that the immediate inclusion of music in the anti-piracy law could lead to a huge amount of controversy.
Director of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications Sergei Plugotarenko said that the decision of the working group reflects the position of the Internet industry, since there are orders of magnitude more complaints about music files than about films. "We agree to expand the law to other types of content, but only if a register of rightholders is created - as prescribed by the law," he added.
Director General of the National Federation of the Music Industry (representing the interests of Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music) Leonid Agronov notes that "pirate sites will breathe a sigh of relief - they received an additional vacation, they have another year and a half of serene business on someone else's music." Agronov expects that serious players will not wait a year and a half to legalize their business. He also says that now musicians in Russia receive less than $ 700 million a year due to piracy.
As a reminder, from August 1, 2013. Federal Law No. 187 allows. After the copyright holder applies to the Moscow City Court, he will issue a writ of execution to Roskomnadzor, which, in turn, within 72 hours sends a notification to the hosting provider or site owner demanding to block illegal content. If there is no response within 24 hours, then Roskomnadzor may apply to telecom operators with a similar requirement. In practice, the resource address is entered in special register websites banned in Russia, updates of which are regularly downloaded by telecom operators. Within 15 days from the date of contacting the Moscow City Court, the copyright holder sends a formal claim. In the event of a positive decision of the court (towards the copyright holder), Roskomnadzor should demand the removal of the content recognized as illegal.
Since the law came into force, there have been talks about the need to expand the scope of application of the anti-piracy law to literary, musical works and software. In early May 2014, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation to develop a joint position of both the Internet industry and individual ministries on the anti-piracy law. In early June, the working group.
In addition, prepared by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Ministry of Culture. The representative of Igor Shuvalov commented that the comments of the Ministry of Economic Development have been taken into account, but they are, for the most part, technical. He added that the project has already been sent to the State Duma to create a document agreed with the deputies. In addition, it is planned to submit a single bill to the Duma before the end of this session.
Also, we note that they were from October 1, 2014 will come into force amendments made to the section of the Civil Code on the rights to the results of intellectual activity and means of individualization, including regarding their protection on the Internet. , which the President signed in May, the proof of the absence of guilt for the violation of intellectual rights is assigned to the violator, joint liability is introduced for persons who jointly committed one violation of intellectual rights.
Reimbursement of losses and payment of compensation are carried out regardless of the fault of the violator, if the violation occurred when he carried out entrepreneurial activity and if he does not prove that the violation was the result of force majeure. And measures of responsibility for violations of intellectual rights committed in information and telecommunication networks, including the Internet, are also applied to the person, on the instructions or under whose control the violators acted.
Also, this law provides for the opportunity for the copyright holder to make a statement that it grants any person the right to use the corresponding result of intellectual activity free of charge on certain conditions and within the period specified by him within certain limits.
l that these amendments "affect all private business in one way or another connected with the public use of musical works." And these are hotels, restaurants, hairdressers and other establishments that "use illegal music content to attract customers," emphasizes Bazilevsky. The new amendments envisage both the liquidation of such organizations and fines ranging from 10 thousand to 5 million rubles.
