Russia Will Broaden Its New Anti-Piracy Legislation

New anti-piracy law enforced in the Russian Federation just a week ago is already back with legislators, with the Ministry of Culture claiming that it should include not just films and TV shows, but also a wide range of other creative material. In addition, website operators will be required to provide their contact details to copyright owners to speed up complaints. In the meantime, tech companies like Google had just a few days to put forward their suggestions.

New law aimed at reducing copyright violation on the Internet was enforced in Russia on the 1st of August. It targets specifically the illegal distribution of films and TV shows, allowing copyright owners to file official complaints against services hosting or linking to illegal content. In case the services fail to remove offending items, they can have their domains blocked at the ISP level.

Just a week after the controversial law was introduced, the Ministry of Culture claims it wants to amend it. Russian newspapers managed to get a copy of the new draft law and found out that the range of creative material protected by the current legislation is going to be extended to include music, images and text-based content. The most interesting part of the story is that the legislation originally covered a wide range of creative material, but was then amended at the eleventh hour when it was deemed that only “high value” video content deserves to be protected. As we can see, the government has changed its mind – again.

This is not the only amendment suggested by the Ministry of Culture. For example, additional requirements will also be placed on website operators and oblige them to provide their real-world addresses on their pages to speed up correspondence. Moreover, they’ll have to incorporate a special form in their pages allowing to streamline the processing of any complaints. Such form is supposed to allow the copyright owner to reduce the time of petition and the time spent on looking for an address.

Under the new law, correctly presented complaints must be followed with some action within 24 hours, including taking down the infringing content. Internet users who uploaded the content in question will be notified of any complaint and provided a chance to appeal. In the meantime, copyright owners may escalate the matter and file a complaint with Russia’s telecoms watchdog – this move could result in a website being blocked at the ISP level. No court orders involved here – this is Russia.

The concerns expressed by Google and the most popular Russian search engine Yandex before the introduction of the current legislation remained unanswered by the government, and the industry experts doubt this time they will have any success either.

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