The creator of "Tatu" attracted for the singer Maksim

The recording company Gala Records yesterday filed a lawsuit in the Moscow Arbitration Court against the online music store Mp3search.ru , co-owned by former producer of the TATU group Ivan Shapovalov. Gala demands 1 million rubles from Mp3search.ru for distributing Maksim’s recordings. The record company states that they are also ready to initiate criminal prosecution of the management of the Internet resource.

The lawsuit was filed by S.B.A. Music Publishing, affiliated with Gala Records, respondents are Fly MP3 LLC (owned by Mp3search) and Chronopay Services LLC, which specializes in bank card payment transactions on the Internet. The statement of claim states that LLC Fly MP3 distributes the album “Difficult age” of the singer Maksim without the consent of the copyright holder in the person of Gala Records and the payment of remuneration. The claim is accompanied by a confirmation by Yandex.Money LLC that the money from the sale of music on Mp3search is deposited in the Chronopay Services account. “Both defendants are engaged in illegal activities and violate the exclusive copyright of the plaintiff, which caused significant losses,” the lawsuit says. Gala requires to recover from the respondents 1 million rubles as compensation, and also to recognize as void the contract between LLC Fly MP3 and the FAIR Collective Copyright Management Society, to which the online store transfers 50% of the proceeds as royalties.

With its lawsuit, Gala is trying to counter the typical pattern of music distribution on the network, according to which the right holder does not receive money from sales, although owners of resources like Mp3search.ru claim the opposite. They list half of the revenue to FAIR or a similar structure - POMC - in the form of royalties, but not a single major copyright holder wants to deal with them. According to the head of Gala Records, Alexander Blinov, 30-40 music online stores are currently operating in Russia and 90% of them do not pay copyright holders.
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In Gala Records do not doubt their victory. “We did not transfer any rights to the FAIR and received no money from them. The FAIR license only creates the appearance of legality, ”says Alexander Blinov. The head of the licensing department of FAIR, Alexander Rybnikov, insists that the organization in good faith makes payments to the copyright holders: “To whom we specifically pay, I cannot say. Trade secret".

Mr Blinov does not exclude that his company may file an application with the prosecutor’s office in order to initiate a criminal case under art. 146 of the Criminal Code ("Violation of copyright and related rights"). Partner of the law firm Beiten Burkhardt, Viktor Naumov, recalls that after the amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation this year, the crimes under this article became grave: “This article will be awarded more real, not conditional, terms offender companies for up to six years. "

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