The fight against piracy is gaining momentum. Is it necessary? And if necessary, how? What do you think?

June 21, 2013 will be the year since the adoption of one of the most scandalous laws relating to the legal regulation of the circulation of content on the Internet - Federal Law No. 187-FZ, commonly known as the “anti-piracy law”. This law was added to article 15.2. to the Federal Law No. 149- “On Information”, which allowed blocking sites suspected of distributing pirated content through the Moscow City Court as interim measures.

Let me remind you that the law applies to objects of exclusive copyright previously unknown to civil law, such as “films, including films, television films” (previously, the Civil Code contained only the concept of “audiovisual work”).
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Since the adoption of the law, many owners (and representatives of owners) of rights (AZAPI, NFMI, BSA, NPPPP, etc.) to other objects of copyright, such as music, literature, software, also insisted on including all copyrighted objects in the law , which seemed to be a fully justified requirement, because the law cannot be selectively applied to only certain objects of copyright, discriminating against holders of other rights. From this point on, a heated debate in the society about the expansion of the law began. During this time, a bill was introduced by MP Zheleznyak , as well as a number of other versions of the legal regulation of the circulation of copyright objects on the Internet . Society and IT business, one way or another, spoke out against expanding the law. The Association of Internet Users and the Pirate Party of Russia, supported by Internet users, reacted critically to most of the proposed legislative initiatives and launched the alternative project Time to Change Copyright , presenting a completely different concept of reform of copyright law in the digital age.

The decision to expand and tighten the “anti-piracy law” at the highest level was postponed indefinitely. And recently, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov instructed the Head of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, Nikolai Nikiforov, to work out a common position of the Internet industry and the government on anti-piracy law, and submit the final document before the end of May 2014.


At present, the Ministry of Communications behind closed doors, officials, media lobbyists and representatives of the largest Internet business in Russia, without public participation, continue to discuss various amendments to No. 187-, and soon we expect the final document on this issue to be submitted to the State Duma. The bold proposals come from different sides, and we will see in the near future what the result of these bilateral negotiations between business and government will be.

The head of RAEC explained how interaction between representatives of IT business, right holders and officials takes place.


The next meeting of the group is scheduled for today, May 20 . It is not too late yet, we are trying to influence the situation, declaring the need to abandon the new information policy of the state, and start discussing a more productive position on copyright reform .


I dare to express my own judgment:
1. “Antipiracy Law” No. 187- - does not correspond to the internal interests of Russia. This law is a product of lobbying activities of the US Trade Representation , with which Russia signed an agreement on 12/12/2012 "to agree on an action plan for the parties to improve copyright protection in connection with the fight against copyright infringement on the Internet." Thus, the country in which the scandalous SOPA failed failed to put a lot of effort into creating an experimental testing ground in Russia to tighten copyright legislation on the Internet. In the light of recent events in the relationship between the two empires, it seems to me absolutely unnecessary to help protect such harsh methods of the priority interests of the largest media corporations in the United States, a country in which copyright income exceeds income from the supply of weapons and is more than $ 168 billion. Strengthening the regime of protection of exclusive rights to the detriment of the freedom of dissemination of information by users of Russia does not seem reasonable. It also limits the ability of young Russian content-oriented startups with new media services. At the same time, I would like to note that Russia has not moved anywhere in the list of 301, which is maintained by the US Trade Mission, which still classifies us as the country with the highest level of piracy, noting only small successes of our legislators and law enforcers.

2. “Antipiracy Law” No. 187-, turned out to be extremely ineffective. I suppose that Mr. Zharov gives what he wished for as real , to show that all the activities of the deputies, judges and officials of the RKN were not empty. For the entire duration of the law, about 300 applications were filed. Satisfied about 170 of them. Users constantly ask me whether the anti-piracy law works at all, because everything, as it was available, is so accessible and left. And it is quite obvious.
Firstly, with the help of simple lotions to browsers, VPN, TOR, etc., all the same blocked pirated sites hated by copyright holders still open to any user
Secondly, many pirated sites are stocked up with a whole pool of IP addresses and domains, and easily jump from one to another.
Third, distributions in p2p appear like mushrooms. And if the copyright holder needs to take a lot of effort to block the page or site in the Moscow City Court, then a few minutes are enough for a new distribution on the torrent to the user.
Fourthly, in closed local networks, as well as all sorts of eMule and other file hosting services, to which rightholders do not even pay attention, there are terabytes of pirated content, for clearing which you need to make very serious efforts that are not aimed at the result.
The example of the unsinkable “Pirate Bay”, which until now works as well as many years ago, despite all the measures taken by the rights holders and the authorities (its owners were convicted, fined, domains were withdrawn, access at the ISP level was blocked) operations to combat piracy, but we see that even today there are fools who believe that they can defeat online piracy.

3. “Anti-piracy law” №187- is not productive. He is not able to help increase the market of "legal sales". The right holders themselves complain about the imperfection of the law: the curve of the legal technique of execution, limitation of jurisdiction, the problem of proving the existence of rights to the appropriate type of use of works, a large amount of documents that must be submitted to the Moscow City Court, etc. law, the company KinoBezGranits, soon after filing an application for the adoption of interim measures, ceased to exist. And the reason for that is not general piracy in the network, but the outdated business of a company selling sliced ​​plastic with copies of films, which has long been given away by a grave smell. The company, which had the largest catalog of art-house cinema in Russia, could have succeeded if it had created online services with streaming viewing in a timely manner. In my deep conviction, piracy is not at all a problem for the creative industry and business in connection with the implementation of content. In order to be successful in the content business today, you must not sell content to users, but service. And I think these are obvious things. Examples of successful world cases prove this all the time. Piracy itself , expressed today in the form of private file-sharing, is the engine of progress , forcing content producers to look for new content logistics business schemes to the end user.


However, not everyone agrees with this position, and the general position of the CPD on piracy issues.

There are other opinions that boil down to the fact that copyright laws are pretty good, and they rightly protect public relations in the field of creativity. Proponents of this position insist that the problem lies in numerous pirated services that violate the law, as well as in the millions of users who maintain the existing level of piracy. And in order for a classic copyright campaign to work, it is necessary to tighten the requirements of the laws and adopt specialized regulations that will not allow copyright infringement on the Internet.


Let's see what else besides blocking websites are offered today by supporters of the most stringent measures to combat piracy on the network:

User fines for downloading pirated content

It is proposed to establish and deploy a large-scale practice of collecting fines from users for illegal downloading (following the example of Germany from 155 Euro to 1000 Euro) and reducing the speed or disabling Internet traffic to users found to download / exchange pirated materials (following the example of 3 strikes in France and 6 strikes in the United States). The Minister of Culture , Mr. Medinsky, has repeatedly called for the introduction of fines for users. Here we must understand that in order to identify such users, it is necessary to put an end to the right of citizens to the secrecy of correspondence guaranteed by the Geneva Convention and the Basic Law, by perusing all traffic using DPI filters.

Assigning information intermediaries with additional responsibilities for pre-moderating all content and self-blocking / deleting materials that violate the copyrights of third parties

This proposal appeared on the initiative of lobbyists from the media business and was proposed by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. Such a proposal relieves the right holders themselves of the need to independently search for pirated copies of digital content and apply to the court or authorized bodies to remove pirated content, placing all responsibility for compliance with the legislation on information intermediaries and at their own expense. Naturally, the owners of Internet services themselves, hosters and providers are not happy with this approach, according to which they become intermediaries by law between users, account owners in social networks, and site owners, on the one hand, and copyright holders, on the other hand. RAEC has repeatedly advocated the inadmissibility of such an approach.

Penalty of information intermediaries for non-fulfillment of obligations to block websites

In accordance with this approach, it is necessary to put pressure on persons promoting the distribution of pirated content. Such a proposal was voiced in the project of the Ministry of Culture of Russia. In accordance with the amendments to the Administrative Code of telecom operators and hosting providers, it is proposed to fine for late blocking of sites suspected of distributing pirated content. They can be up to 300 thousand rubles. for citizens, up to 600 thousand rubles. - for officials and up to 1 million rubles. for legal entities.

Creation of a specialized police unit that would investigate online piracy and bring users to justice

An example of such a unit is the PIPCU (Police IP Crime Unit) in England, the City of Police Department for Intellectual Property Offenses, which, receiving funding from the state budget, deals exclusively with copyright infringement on the network, representing the interests of Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), the British right holder organizations. PIPCU employees divide the domain names of pirated sites, send out fines, attract users and site owners to criminal liability. In fact, in Russia there are already unofficial alliances between employees of the “K” department and RAPO agents (subsidiaries of the American MPA) who are engaged in similar activities.



Sending educational letters and warnings to users found to be illegal in file sharing about the inadmissibility of violation of the law and the application of possible sanctions.

A similar proposal recently appeared in the UK . Internet providers will send similar letters of happiness to users. At the same time, the limit for sending letters is set to the address of one user - no more than four letters via regular or e-mail. With each letter, the wording will be harsher, but they should not contain threats or hints about the consequences for violators. Of course, the copyright holders wanted to have access to the database of users who download the content illegally, in order to be able to influence them later on in court, but such a proposal was rejected.

The assignment of a duty to information intermediaries for copying and storing information (including IP addresses, logs and other information about user activity) about users participating in illegal file sharing and its presentation to the right holders or law enforcement agencies. To reveal user data.

For the first time, a similar method of combating piracy was undertaken in 2004. The RIAA and MPAA demanded in court to gain access to the lists of violating users that tracker administrators have, but the US Supreme Court rejected the petitions, deciding that the evidence against users was clearly insufficient. therefore, providers should not disclose them. Subsequently, the MPAA was sued against Valence Media LLC, the operator of the site www.torrentspy.com , accused of aiding piracy by simplifying the search and downloading of copyrighted materials. A federal judge of the Central District of California in Los Angeles, in his decision of 05/29/2007, ordered the defendant to create log files containing information about what users are trying to find on the Web, as well as to use the FileRights pirated content filtering system. Thus, in California, a precedent was created according to which the tracker administration should keep a log of visits and provide data from it at the first request of the rights holders or the authorities.

In the meantime, deputies and officials were thinking about expanding the “anti-piracy law”, in Russia an obligation was introduced to monitor all users of the network and accumulate information. After the adoption of №97- “law on bloggers” in Russia, at the legislative level the obligation of the organizer of information dissemination on the Internet to store information on the territory of the Russian Federation “on facts, reception, transmission, delivery and (or) processing of voice information, written text, images, sounds or other electronic messages of Internet users and information about these users for 6 months. " The goals of copyright holders and authorities in the field of “content filtering” are obviously different, but both are united in their desire to control the network. I suppose that the right holders themselves and their representatives will use this opportunity and demand from “organizers of disseminating information” (who can be precisely in this category, we can only guess at this time) to disclose information about users suspected of piracy. This will provide an opportunity for rightholders, their representatives and legal agencies to establish a new practice on the American and German model with massive involvement of citizens involved in uncontrolled network copying, administrative and criminal liability, as well as monetization of content due to user fines.

As usual, Internet users themselves are not involved in the discussion on the further formation of legislation regulating civil law circulation of content in the network. Therefore, it is important for us to form an independent opinion of the Internet community in order to present our position on the further adoption of legislative measures to combat piracy, and therefore ask you to vote:

UPD: I thought a little, and decided in light of recent developments on the introduction of DRM in browsers and network discrimination related to the restrictions of operators on p2p traffic, decided to add another item “You need to fight piracy with the help of technical tools (widespread implementation of DRM and network file sharing discrimination )