Russia’s controversial anti-piracy law has been in force for one year now, and how the local web suffered from it thus far? According to the country’s telecoms agency, 12 websites, mainly torrent trackers, were blocked in the past year. Apparently, web-blocking has changed very little, and the infringing content is as easy to find as before.
The Russian Federation introduced a new anti-piracy law following intense pressure from international rightsholders a year ago. The legislation provides a mechanism for websites to be blocked if they fail to comply with copyright owner’s takedown requests within 3 days. This provision caused widespread fear and speculation, because in theory, thousands of websites, some carrying legitimate material, could find themselves censored in favor of “corporate interests”. Fortunately, the law almost didn’t work.
In the first three weeks of the law, 19 complaints were files, but only 11 of them were correctly presented and processed. One of the most popular trackers in the country, Rutor.org, became one of the earliest casualties. Five months passed, and copyright owners had filed about 75 official complaints. Of them, 30 targeted services chose to comply with official removal orders, while 19 others were blocked. 6 six months later, the Russia’s Minister of Communications claimed the law was having the required effect: allegedly, there was an increase of 30% in the number of users who started paying for legitimate content.
On the other hand, critics still doubt about the dramatic turnaround – indeed, there has been little downturn in the number of rightsholders complaining about piracy. Statistics say that during the past year the Moscow City Court imposed preliminary interim measures against 175 websites following copyright complaints, and eventually 12 of file-sharing related domains were blocked, most of them BitTorrent trackers. Anyway, this dozen is far below the numbers predicted a year ago.
The problem is that despite all the complaints and blocking, the illegal content is still easy to find – this is a key issue which doesn’t appear to be solved anytime soon. For some reason, the watchdog says that things are improving. The only difference is that copyright owners now have the opportunity to make an impact on legal grounds.
The Russian Federation introduced a new anti-piracy law following intense pressure from international rightsholders a year ago. The legislation provides a mechanism for websites to be blocked if they fail to comply with copyright owner’s takedown requests within 3 days. This provision caused widespread fear and speculation, because in theory, thousands of websites, some carrying legitimate material, could find themselves censored in favor of “corporate interests”. Fortunately, the law almost didn’t work.
In the first three weeks of the law, 19 complaints were files, but only 11 of them were correctly presented and processed. One of the most popular trackers in the country, Rutor.org, became one of the earliest casualties. Five months passed, and copyright owners had filed about 75 official complaints. Of them, 30 targeted services chose to comply with official removal orders, while 19 others were blocked. 6 six months later, the Russia’s Minister of Communications claimed the law was having the required effect: allegedly, there was an increase of 30% in the number of users who started paying for legitimate content.
On the other hand, critics still doubt about the dramatic turnaround – indeed, there has been little downturn in the number of rightsholders complaining about piracy. Statistics say that during the past year the Moscow City Court imposed preliminary interim measures against 175 websites following copyright complaints, and eventually 12 of file-sharing related domains were blocked, most of them BitTorrent trackers. Anyway, this dozen is far below the numbers predicted a year ago.
The problem is that despite all the complaints and blocking, the illegal content is still easy to find – this is a key issue which doesn’t appear to be solved anytime soon. For some reason, the watchdog says that things are improving. The only difference is that copyright owners now have the opportunity to make an impact on legal grounds.
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