Dealing with a lawyer: is it legal to download torrents, buy games in Brazilian Steam and not only
Hi, Geektimes! This is the first post from the HideMy.name VPN service (it is also hideme.ru, which was recently blocked and then unlocked by the RKN). In this publication, we decided to examine some of the legal aspects of using sites that are blocked in the Russian Federation. Or the use of online services in a manner not intended by the developers.
Is it legal to buy games in the Brazilian Steam, while in Russia? Or go to RuTracker? And watch YouTube in China? In general, we went to understand.
Many people know that in different regions publishers (games, music and movies) determine different price ratios. There are even special browser extensions that immediately show the price of the game in different regions. It looks like this:
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It is clear that in Valve (the American company that created Steam), too, not fools work. And for many ( but not all !) Games, which, for example, in Brazil or India are cheaper, they set one of three limitations:
In addition, there is a risk of blocking the account for users who abuse Valve's patience with respect to purchases from the swing region. For this, there is even a separate clause in the Steam User Agreement :
Finally, a change of IP-address in some cases allows you to buy and / or play a game, which in principle is not available (temporarily or permanently) in a particular region (for example, in Russia). At the same time, in some stores (but not Steam) the purchase of games from a foreign region is also the absence of a “Google tax”. If Steam pledged 18% VAT on the purchase price, then some other sites include an additional tax only at the last step of the purchase.
The law on the so-called “Google tax” came into force on January 1, 2017. From now on, hosters, ad networks, search engines, vendors of software, games, messengers, etc. must get a taxpayer's office at the Russian tax inspectorate and deduct 18% to the Russian treasury. It is important to understand that despite the fact that the law was adopted, the mechanism regulating the collection of VAT from foreign companies has not yet been developed, as well as effective methods of supervision. It is still not clear which IT companies will pay it, and what punishment awaits for refusing to pay VAT. It is also necessary to take into account that if the company providing the service is located in the EU, similar rules apply there, and the VAT is already sewn into the price of the product / service. In America, for example, there is no VAT. In any case, it is absolutely legal to access websites through the IP of another country. The user is not a VAT payer in the budget and no duties are assigned to him. So, there is no responsibility.
Theoretically, Steam could apply to a Russian court with a civil lawsuit, stating that the consumer had violated the user agreement and reported inaccurate information about his whereabouts, and to claim damages in the form of lost income. In practice, the probability is low, because Attorney's fees will be much higher than the amount of the claim. At the same time, in order to prove that a particular citizen misled them, they would have to request information from the VPN provider. I doubt that any reliable VPN provider will provide such logs. This is a cross on reputation and business. Therefore, I do not see any legal risks that could be discussed.
In the official rules of the service indicated that:
In other words, the free functionality of the service is available only to four countries in the world. Here's what will happen if you go to Yandex.Music and try to listen to it for free, for example, from the Czech Republic:
The reason for this restriction is obviously the conditions under which Yandex.Music works with the copyright holders. And here it is all the more interesting to know the opinion of a lawyer.
If you are a citizen of the Russian Federation and have registered on the Yandex.Music service, being in the Russian Federation, you have the full right to listen to music, using the license for Russia, even being not in the Russian Federation. Many works simply do not extend the service to other territories due to the lack of exclusive rights. If the service does not comply with the terms of the contract, it can be blocked or brought to property liability by rights holders in foreign jurisdictions.
Another frequent use of VPN is the opposite. When in Russia, users connect, for example, to Spotify, which never started up in the country.
Is it legal to listen to music in a foreign service that does not officially work in Russia? Pass the word to the lawyer.
In Russia, Spotify is not available, because Russia is not in the list of countries where the service is distributed. But Spotify has 100 million users worldwide who pay 30 million for a subscription. I think the company has a lot to do besides prosecuting Russian users in a civil court. Again, this is a question of legal costs, which will be higher than the potential benefits. In addition, the lawsuit will create unnecessary reputational costs. In all other respects there are no restrictions of the law.
As you know, Rutracker (as well as hundreds of other torrent trackers) is blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation. But is it legal to use the site using a spoof IP address, given that the resource is blocked by RKN?
Firstly, there are “two big differences”. Even three: first, go to the Rutracker website, second, download torrents, and third, store content protected by copyright holders on your computer.
The latter, namely, storing such content on a computer, is tantamount to use (Art. 1270 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation: “At the same time, recording a work on electronic media, including writing to computer memory, is also considered playback). Also, in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation it is noted that it does not matter whether you use such content, for example, pirated software for profit, or not. That is, even a pirated Photoshop installed on a computer is a violation of the law. In the same way as the pirated Photoshop, installed in the cabin by retouching pictures, where it brings profit to the owner.
But is it against the law to view, visit or download materials from a blocked site? No no and one more time no. Roskomnadzor blocks the site itself, but cannot in any way force users to be responsible for viewing it by any other means.
Similarly, the sanctions for storing pirated software ≠sanctions for downloading a torrent file. Moreover, on the same Rutracker there is a decent amount of completely legally placed content. Find which somewhere else sometimes is simply impossible.
We told everything beautifully, but let's clarify whether we are right with a lawyer.
Using VPN or other technical solutions is completely legal. The authorities, of course, are now trying to deal with anonymizers and any other means of circumventing locks. But they do it in the same way - blocking through the courts. At the same time, there is no law prohibiting the use of anonymization, but the courts pass such unjust decisions in large numbers. However, these decisions of the courts do not impose any rights and obligations on the end user. Recently, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media confirmed that currently there are no provisions in the current legislation restricting the use of the above traffic proxying technologies and anonymizers.
About torrents and files containing copyrighted content is not entirely true. For violation of copyright in the Russian legislation there is administrative liability, criminal and civil. To attract under the administrative code according to clause 7.12 of the Administrative Code, it is necessary to prove that revenue will be extracted with the help of downloaded content, and to bring to criminal liability the cost of copyright infringement must be high. those. more than 100 thousand rubles. However, there were some cases of attraction. As a rule, this happened either because a single copy of software or film / music was very expensive, or the investigation was able to find a lot of files, the cost of copyright infringement exceeding 100 thousand rubles. That is, there is only civil liability. But, in order to attract to it and to demand compensation for damage or recovery of compensation, the right holder must know the name and place of residence of the offender. If the user is under a reliable VPN, then you can be sure that neither the right holder, nor even the provider will know who downloaded the torrent from the IP known to them at a particular time.
In 2003, China launched the Golden Shield project, better known as the Great Chinese Firewall. This is an internet content filtering system. Firewall blocks access to a number of sites, including the Western media and social networks: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We decided to ask a lawyer if it was legal to log in to YouTube using a VPN. And what punishment for this threatens a resident of China and a Russian tourist?
In China, despite the Great Chinese Firewall, there is no personal responsibility for using a VPN or TOR. Especially for tourists. Blocked since 2009, Twitter has about 10 million Chinese. At a minimum, this suggests that many of them use a VPN themselves. State policy, first of all, aims to ensure that services like YouTube either do not work at all, or work so slowly that no one would want to use them.
That's all for now, write that you would be interested in learning about freedom on the Internet, and we will be happy to tell you more about everything!
PS For readers who are not indifferent to the topic of freedom on the Internet, we at HideMy.name have prepared a special promotional code GEEKTIMES1. With it you can turn a subscription for 1 day for 49 rubles into 7 days. Just enter the specified promotional code after selecting the tariff and payment method . Validity 30 days from the date of publication of the article.
Is it legal to buy games in the Brazilian Steam, while in Russia? Or go to RuTracker? And watch YouTube in China? In general, we went to understand.
Buy games on Steam and on other sites in countries with lower price
Many people know that in different regions publishers (games, music and movies) determine different price ratios. There are even special browser extensions that immediately show the price of the game in different regions. It looks like this:
')
It is clear that in Valve (the American company that created Steam), too, not fools work. And for many ( but not all !) Games, which, for example, in Brazil or India are cheaper, they set one of three limitations:
- the game will be available only in the language in which it was purchased
- the game can only be played from the local IP
- you can donate the game only to users from a limited list of countries
In addition, there is a risk of blocking the account for users who abuse Valve's patience with respect to purchases from the swing region. For this, there is even a separate clause in the Steam User Agreement :
Finally, a change of IP-address in some cases allows you to buy and / or play a game, which in principle is not available (temporarily or permanently) in a particular region (for example, in Russia). At the same time, in some stores (but not Steam) the purchase of games from a foreign region is also the absence of a “Google tax”. If Steam pledged 18% VAT on the purchase price, then some other sites include an additional tax only at the last step of the purchase.
Commentary of Sarkis Darbinyan, Lawyer of Roskomsvoboda:
- How legal is it to bypass Google Tax (18% VAT) while in Russia and replacing your IP with the IP of a user from another country through a VPN?
The law on the so-called “Google tax” came into force on January 1, 2017. From now on, hosters, ad networks, search engines, vendors of software, games, messengers, etc. must get a taxpayer's office at the Russian tax inspectorate and deduct 18% to the Russian treasury. It is important to understand that despite the fact that the law was adopted, the mechanism regulating the collection of VAT from foreign companies has not yet been developed, as well as effective methods of supervision. It is still not clear which IT companies will pay it, and what punishment awaits for refusing to pay VAT. It is also necessary to take into account that if the company providing the service is located in the EU, similar rules apply there, and the VAT is already sewn into the price of the product / service. In America, for example, there is no VAT. In any case, it is absolutely legal to access websites through the IP of another country. The user is not a VAT payer in the budget and no duties are assigned to him. So, there is no responsibility.
- How legitimate, while in Russia, to use regional discounts on games when buying them on Steam with the substitution of IP-address (for example, Brazilian)?
Theoretically, Steam could apply to a Russian court with a civil lawsuit, stating that the consumer had violated the user agreement and reported inaccurate information about his whereabouts, and to claim damages in the form of lost income. In practice, the probability is low, because Attorney's fees will be much higher than the amount of the claim. At the same time, in order to prove that a particular citizen misled them, they would have to request information from the VPN provider. I doubt that any reliable VPN provider will provide such logs. This is a cross on reputation and business. Therefore, I do not see any legal risks that could be discussed.
Play Yandex.Music not from Russia. And listen to Spotify - in Russia
In the official rules of the service indicated that:
In other words, the free functionality of the service is available only to four countries in the world. Here's what will happen if you go to Yandex.Music and try to listen to it for free, for example, from the Czech Republic:
The reason for this restriction is obviously the conditions under which Yandex.Music works with the copyright holders. And here it is all the more interesting to know the opinion of a lawyer.
Commentary of Sarkis Darbinyan, Lawyer of Roskomsvoboda:
If you are a citizen of the Russian Federation and have registered on the Yandex.Music service, being in the Russian Federation, you have the full right to listen to music, using the license for Russia, even being not in the Russian Federation. Many works simply do not extend the service to other territories due to the lack of exclusive rights. If the service does not comply with the terms of the contract, it can be blocked or brought to property liability by rights holders in foreign jurisdictions.
Another frequent use of VPN is the opposite. When in Russia, users connect, for example, to Spotify, which never started up in the country.
Is it legal to listen to music in a foreign service that does not officially work in Russia? Pass the word to the lawyer.
Lawyer's comment:
In Russia, Spotify is not available, because Russia is not in the list of countries where the service is distributed. But Spotify has 100 million users worldwide who pay 30 million for a subscription. I think the company has a lot to do besides prosecuting Russian users in a civil court. Again, this is a question of legal costs, which will be higher than the potential benefits. In addition, the lawsuit will create unnecessary reputational costs. In all other respects there are no restrictions of the law.
Log in to Rutracker and download torrents in principle
As you know, Rutracker (as well as hundreds of other torrent trackers) is blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation. But is it legal to use the site using a spoof IP address, given that the resource is blocked by RKN?
Firstly, there are “two big differences”. Even three: first, go to the Rutracker website, second, download torrents, and third, store content protected by copyright holders on your computer.
The latter, namely, storing such content on a computer, is tantamount to use (Art. 1270 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation: “At the same time, recording a work on electronic media, including writing to computer memory, is also considered playback). Also, in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation it is noted that it does not matter whether you use such content, for example, pirated software for profit, or not. That is, even a pirated Photoshop installed on a computer is a violation of the law. In the same way as the pirated Photoshop, installed in the cabin by retouching pictures, where it brings profit to the owner.
But is it against the law to view, visit or download materials from a blocked site? No no and one more time no. Roskomnadzor blocks the site itself, but cannot in any way force users to be responsible for viewing it by any other means.
Similarly, the sanctions for storing pirated software ≠sanctions for downloading a torrent file. Moreover, on the same Rutracker there is a decent amount of completely legally placed content. Find which somewhere else sometimes is simply impossible.
We told everything beautifully, but let's clarify whether we are right with a lawyer.
Lawyer's comment:
- Do we correctly interpret the law, saying that visiting Rutracker.org is not a crime. Downloading a torrent file is not a crime, regardless of its content. But storing pirated software on a computer's hard drive is a crime, even if this software is not used for profit?
Using VPN or other technical solutions is completely legal. The authorities, of course, are now trying to deal with anonymizers and any other means of circumventing locks. But they do it in the same way - blocking through the courts. At the same time, there is no law prohibiting the use of anonymization, but the courts pass such unjust decisions in large numbers. However, these decisions of the courts do not impose any rights and obligations on the end user. Recently, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media confirmed that currently there are no provisions in the current legislation restricting the use of the above traffic proxying technologies and anonymizers.
About torrents and files containing copyrighted content is not entirely true. For violation of copyright in the Russian legislation there is administrative liability, criminal and civil. To attract under the administrative code according to clause 7.12 of the Administrative Code, it is necessary to prove that revenue will be extracted with the help of downloaded content, and to bring to criminal liability the cost of copyright infringement must be high. those. more than 100 thousand rubles. However, there were some cases of attraction. As a rule, this happened either because a single copy of software or film / music was very expensive, or the investigation was able to find a lot of files, the cost of copyright infringement exceeding 100 thousand rubles. That is, there is only civil liability. But, in order to attract to it and to demand compensation for damage or recovery of compensation, the right holder must know the name and place of residence of the offender. If the user is under a reliable VPN, then you can be sure that neither the right holder, nor even the provider will know who downloaded the torrent from the IP known to them at a particular time.
Watch YouTube if you are in China
In 2003, China launched the Golden Shield project, better known as the Great Chinese Firewall. This is an internet content filtering system. Firewall blocks access to a number of sites, including the Western media and social networks: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We decided to ask a lawyer if it was legal to log in to YouTube using a VPN. And what punishment for this threatens a resident of China and a Russian tourist?
Lawyer's comment:
- How legal is it to watch Youtube via VPN in China? What punishment threatens the tourist and what resident of the country?
In China, despite the Great Chinese Firewall, there is no personal responsibility for using a VPN or TOR. Especially for tourists. Blocked since 2009, Twitter has about 10 million Chinese. At a minimum, this suggests that many of them use a VPN themselves. State policy, first of all, aims to ensure that services like YouTube either do not work at all, or work so slowly that no one would want to use them.
That's all for now, write that you would be interested in learning about freedom on the Internet, and we will be happy to tell you more about everything!
PS For readers who are not indifferent to the topic of freedom on the Internet, we at HideMy.name have prepared a special promotional code GEEKTIMES1. With it you can turn a subscription for 1 day for 49 rubles into 7 days. Just enter the specified promotional code after selecting the tariff and payment method . Validity 30 days from the date of publication of the article.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/403539/
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