The authors of the amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation finally decided to destroy Linux, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Firefox, Chromium and LibreOffice?

Previously on Lost In the previous series: [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] , [7] , [8] , [9] (read everything if you are not in course of the “revolutionary amendments”).

On February 5, 2012, the next draft of amendments to the civil code was published on the Russian Private Law Portal ( news in Vedomosti , Google cache , copy ). “It was prepared by a working group headed by Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov, which includes representatives of the presidential council on the codification of civil law, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Supreme Arbitration Court, the Presidential Legal Department. The project was sent to the presidential administration, follows from a letter Konovalov addressed to Dmitry Medvedev. "

Unfortunately, this project still contains without changes the points that a year ago drew the strongest criticism of the entire Internet community.
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First of all, we are talking about the proposal to supplement article 1233 with paragraph 6 to read as follows:

6. The rightholder may make a statement about the provision to any person of the opportunity to use the result of intellectual activity belonging to him free of charge on the terms and conditions determined by him. During this period, any person is entitled to use this result on the specified conditions.

If there is no indication in the statement of the right holder for the term, it is considered that this term is five years.

In the absence of a reference to the territory in the application of the right holder, it is considered that this is the territory of the Russian Federation.

The rightholder does not have the right to carry out such actions in the presence of valid paid license agreements, under which the right to use the result of intellectual activity is provided within the same limits.

This statement should be made by posting on the official website of the federal executive body on intellectual property. In the event that state registration is carried out with respect to the result of intellectual activity, information on such a statement must be entered by the federal executive body on intellectual property into the relevant state register.

During the term of the application can not be withdrawn, and its terms of use can not be changed.

The provisions of this paragraph do not apply to the results of intellectual activities for which this Code establishes the procedure for granting an open license by the holder (Articles 1368 and 1429).

Full text of the bill

This proposal was previously called "profanation and discredit the very idea of ​​free licenses." Anatoly Semenov, Advisor to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Economics and Innovations of the State Duma Committee on Culture, in April 2011, commenting on the proposal, said :
“The sweet phrase“ The right holder does not have the right to perform such actions in the presence of valid paid license agreements ”literally means that in cases where some RAO has concluded, in the interests of the right holder, the notorious“ RAO Repertoire license agreement ”, in which it is known, thanks to another sovereign Russian idea called “state accreditation of OKUPs” that includes the entire repertoire of the visible part of the Universe, the poor creator the right holder no longer has the right to allow his fan m for example, freely and free of charge to perform your work in public! ”

On May 18, 2011, lawyer Vadim Kolosov stated that the proposed amendments to Art. 1233 GK "distort the essence of licenses and make it worse than it is now."

Sergey Sereda regarding the requirement for posting applications on the Rospatent website stated that “with this approach, our last authors will flee abroad to publish / release software there,” and “foreign authors / rightholders didn’t want to spit from a high roof on our ROSPATENT or any there are "statements". "

D.A. Saveliev, PhD in Law, said that the amendments do not take into account the widespread global practice of using free licenses - Creative Commons, GNU, etc., in which they are valid for the entire duration of copyright throughout the world and do not require the participation of state bodies in registration or performing other formalities.

See also the great good article by Pavel Protasov criticizing the bill .

RAEC and Wikimedia RU proposed to designate that the statement can be made in free form, the use of the work does not have to be free, the period should be equal to the entire duration of copyright, and the territory should not be limited to Russia, but should apply to the whole world. The points on the limitation of validity and territory are not critical for CC, but they do not allow the GPL to work as intended.

They also proposed to exclude the phrase “The rightholder does not have the right to carry out such actions if there are valid paid license agreements under which the right to use the result of intellectual activity is available” and to make it not necessary to post the application on the official website of the federal executive body.

It should be noted that the RAEC amendments were also criticized by Protasov .

None of the proposals was fulfilled. All offers to the public were ignored. The adoption of the current version of the amendments as a law may make illegal such projects as Linux, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Firefox, Chromium and LibreOffice, because they will not be able to send thousands of applications to the site for each change in code or text. This was warned in the media . There are 800,000 registered members in Russian Wikipedia alone. So what? Until all 800,000 write to Rospatent, will they, for example, be put in jail for disks with Wikipedia as for counterfeit films?

Also, proposals were not adopted to amend other articles of the Civil Code.

Thus, proposals to amend articles 1228 and 1269 to limit the right of withdrawal have not been adopted.

The authors of the February Amendments made a clause in article 1286 only on programs and databases (this is the only currently detected change regarding licenses), but the general RAEC proposal aimed at consolidating CC and FDL was ignored.

What will happen after the adoption of the law by the State Duma?

There are different opinions:
" does not interfere with the use of Creative Commons on a common basis "
“ There is a risk that judges, citing the existence of a special rule, will deny free licenses legal force ”
" The mechanism provided for in paragraph 6 of Article 1233 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation differs from that according to which Creative Commons operate, but it does not exclude the possibility of using free licenses "

Can we take a word? Will it suit us that instead of guarantees “give a tooth” that their innovations do not interfere with free licenses? What then to do with the courts (which have not yet fully understood the current rules of the game)?

I don’t know about mass rallies, disconnections of Russian Wikipedia ... I think Medvedev still won’t bring it to that.

With all the history of the amendments in the GC you can find on Wikipedia .

Download the bill , we will continue to study together in the comments.

UPD :

The new edition of the Civil Code of Russia may be submitted to the State Duma in the spring : “The amendments, in particular, concern additional measures to protect the rights of Russian entrepreneurs.”

The new version of the document the head of state is ready to submit to the parliament for the spring session.

Medvedev:

“I hope that it is in this form that this document will be able to play its role by ensuring the proper dynamism of our economy, while at the same time preserving the traditions that have been characteristic of our legal system for the past 200 years.

I expect that this document will finally be brought to the end of all the nuances in the very near future, and I will be ready to submit it to the State Duma for subsequent consideration. ”

Konovalov:

“In the process of discussing this document, a very wide range of experts was involved, which was quite representative, which allows us to really hope that the result of this discussion reflects today all the best in Russian legal practice and legal thought.”

“A rather serious contribution has been made to the provision of the law of obligations, that is, in fact, the turnover of property, the execution of transactions, contracts, that is all, due to which there is an economic turnover in Russia today. Taking into account the interests of the Russian economy, this is an extremely important step for investors in the Russian economy, both domestic and foreign.

This is a very important signal, which replenishes the legal and legal tools with new opportunities that today come to the service of those who invest in Russia, conduct business, business. But, I repeat, for both entrepreneurs and citizens who do not conduct business, but simply live their normal, normal lives, the code gives new opportunities, new comfortable conditions in order to effectively exercise their rights. ”

kremlin.ru