Fans of torrents will place penalty traps. The Russian received a term and a million fine for "piracy Negative consequences of the law

The text of amendments to the anti-piracy law, prepared for the second reading by United Russia deputy Sergei Zheleznyak, deputies Dmitry Volkov, Zugura Rakhmatullina and others, has been submitted to the State Duma. The anti-piracy law, adopted last year, involves the blocking of sites with pirated films and series by Russian operators. And this bill expands the scope of this law to other types of content - music, books, software, etc. True, the law will begin to protect music later - from January 1, 2016.

The State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications approved the bill for adoption in the second reading.

The parliamentary amendments, in particular, introduce the concept of malicious violators of anti-piracy legislation into the legislation: for example, if a site has repeatedly and grossly violated the exclusive rights to works, then it is subject to a complete ban on the territory of Russia, follows from the text of the bill. This means that access to the site can be closed even if its owners have removed the content at the request of the copyright holders. But such a decision can only be made by a court decision. That is, popular torrent trackers and other sites that allow you to download content can forever be blacklisted by Roskomnadzor.

The bill also introduces a pre-trial procedure for settling disputes related to piracy on the Internet. This procedure was developed by the Ministry of Culture last year. The law, if adopted, will oblige site owners to respond to requests from copyright holders and remove their content from their resources without a court decision - they can ignore the requirements only if they have evidence of the legitimacy of posting content. If site owners violate the pre-trial dispute resolution procedure, they will be fined 150,000-300,000 rubles. for citizens, 300,000-600,000 rubles. - for officials and 0.5-1 million rubles. - for legal entities.

Another interesting amendment that the deputies want to make to the Code of Administrative Offenses. Article 7.12 of the Code of Administrative Offenses removes the wording about a fine for infringement of copyright and related rights “in order to generate income”. That is, it turns out that any users and site owners can be fined for posting movies, music, software, even if they do not earn money on piracy. This is true, confirms the head of the legal department of the Coordinating Center for the National Internet Domain Sergey Kopylov: since the qualifying sign of generating income is removed, then any, even indirect, violation of copyright and related rights can be punished under this article by a fine.

Analyst of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC) Irina Levova is disappointed with the second version of the anti-piracy bill. The authors of the project, according to her, repeatedly involved the Internet industry in the discussion of this text, but the opinion of Internet companies as a result was practically ignored, she complains. "There were three main platforms for discussing the text - a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, an expert council under the "open government", the Ministry of Communications," says Levova.

"At all these meetings, proposals were made by copyright holders and the Internet industry. The final version of the text took into account only the wishes of copyright holders and the Ministry of Culture: the test retained requirements to block hyperlinks, administrative liability for violating extrajudicial blocking procedures remained, and the criterion of "repeated" violations remained, which, as known from the Civil Code, is equal to two violations, i.e., in fact - two hyperlinks. The Ministry of Economic Development, experts from the "open government", RAEC pointed out the imbalance of these proposals. I do not understand why so many smart people spent their working time on these, how it turned out to be pointless discussions, ”Leva sums up.

An anti-piracy law that allows copyright holders to block pirate sites on the Russian Internet may be adopted as early as the spring session of the State Duma. But it will not apply to music yet, said two members of the working group at the Ministry of Communications, which is developing amendments to this law.

This information was confirmed to Vedomosti by representatives of the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Culture. According to Deputy Communications Minister Alexei Volin, the amendments may be adopted this year, but they will apply to books, software and films. And music, according to him, the law will begin to protect from January 1, 2016. This is due to the complexities of administration, Wolin adds.

“We have always advocated the phased introduction of anti-piracy measures,” says Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Ivliev. Music will fall under the law in a year and a half. This is due to the large volume of music files on the Internet, which, according to Ivliev, can lead to a huge number of disputes.

Initially, the anti-piracy law applied only to films and series: it was adopted after a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Russian filmmakers. They complained to him about Internet piracy, and Putin promised to help eradicate it. But soon after the law was passed, representatives of other industries (musicians, software makers and book publishers) were outraged that the state decided to protect only one type of content.

Then the Ministry of Culture developed its own bill, which expanded the law to other types of content, and deputy Sergei Zheleznyak - his own. The project of the Ministry of Culture, introducing a pre-trial procedure for resolving disputes about piracy, initially assumed the introduction of this regulation for music not immediately, but 12 months after the entry into force of the anti-piracy law. There were no such restrictions in the Zheleznyak project.

On behalf of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Culture developed a joint draft of a new anti-piracy law, which was submitted to the government last week. Now officials expect to combine their project with Zheleznyak's amendments. The final text should be adopted by the State Duma in the near future - in the spring session.

Sergey Plugotarenko, director of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, says that the decision of the working group fully reflects the position of the Internet industry. There are orders of magnitude more claims on music files than on films, and this can seriously worsen the work of Internet companies, he believes. “We agree to extend the law to other types of content, but only if a register of copyright holders is created - as it is written in the law,” he adds.

“The music industry as a whole supports the anti-piracy law: it gives authors real leverage in the fight against illegal distribution of content,” says Leonid Agronov, CEO of the National Federation of the Music Industry (NFMI, representing the interests of Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music, etc.). - But at the insistence of the Internet industry, musicians will now have to wait a few years with their claims. Pirate sites will breathe a sigh of relief - they got an extra vacation, they have another year and a half of serene business on other people's music. It is strange that major Internet portals did not prepare for anti-piracy measures in advance, because they have been distributing illegal music for several years, he points out and expects that serious players will not wait a year and a half to legalize their business.

MOSCOW, December 28 - RIA Novosti. The idea of ​​the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky to tighten control over piracy is correct, however, it is likely that there will be difficulties with its implementation against the backdrop of high prices for content and the absence of an agency that will undertake to control the downloading of unlicensed content, said a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and connections Vadim Dengin.

Dengin believes that it is necessary to understand who will be responsible for finding the offender. “If this is Roskomnadzor, then there are now a large number of tasks that we have obliged the department to fulfill by the legislation of the Russian Federation. Therefore, I’m not sure that Roskomnadzor will have the strength to do this. Creating a service that will deal with this is budget money, which we have already reduced It seems to me that there will be no separate funds for the creation of such a service," the deputy added.

“In Russia, we have been downloading for free all our lives. I would not sharply oblige everyone to pay for content. Copyright holders should give prices to citizens that would make people think about refusing to download free content. This will be a step towards legalizing content,” summed up Dengin.

The “anti-piracy” law, important for the entire Internet, appeared in Russia in 2013. Since then it has gone through several editions. Its adoption led to a heated public discussion about the future of the World Wide Web and free access to information.

Prerequisites for the appearance

What is an "anti-piracy" law? Why did the state accept it? The spread of the Internet has changed the whole idea of ​​the availability of information. When the Network first appeared in Russia, it was not regulated by anything and was available to a small layer of users. The first providers appeared in Moscow in the 90s. Their channel speed was extremely low.

Over time, the industry has evolved markedly. The largest mobile operators began to offer the services of Internet providers. In the zero years, the Network became public. Two factors contributed to this. First, every home has its own personal computer. Secondly, prices for Internet services have decreased.

Along with the avalanche-like growth of the audience, more and more different content began to appear on the Web: music, books, films ... In fact, people got free access to intellectual property. The changes in the market have hit the record industry hard, etc. Copyright holders, studios and writers are increasingly turning to the state to address the "piracy" situation. At first, illegal downloading of various files was called so in informal slang. Later, the term took root in official use. This is how the "anti-piracy" law got its name.

Lock mechanism

In 2013, the work of a group of deputies from the Committee on Communications and Communications began in the State Duma. Its result was the "anti-piracy" law. He had to allow if they contained unlicensed content. In this case, the initiative belongs to the copyright holder. If the owner of a film found out that a certain site contained his property, which had got there illegally, he could apply to the appropriate government authorities.

At first it was planned that the law would apply to any kind of information on the Internet. After making certain amendments, it was decided to limit the effect of this rule only to video content. A year later, the list was expanded again. In this case, the copyright holder must prove that he is the owner of the product. Disputes with site owners are settled through the courts. To do this, the owner must file a claim. If the copyright holder loses the case, he is obliged to pay compensation to the site owner and all persons who have suffered losses due to the trial and premature blocking.

Roskomnadzor

In order for the "anti-piracy" to work, the state needed an agency that would deal with blocking sites. For this purpose, Roskomnadzor, which is part of the Ministry of Communications and Russia, was chosen.

When the "anti-piracy" law was adopted, the Federal Service received all the necessary tools to block websites within five days. From the very beginning, it was not clear how much money would be needed to provide the department with all the necessary resources. On the second day of the law, Roskomnadzor asked for 100 million rubles a year to fight piracy. To work with blocked sites, a special unit was created, in which 25 employees were employed.

Law passed

The Russian "anti-piracy" law was developed and adopted in an extremely short time. On June 6, 2013, several State Duma deputies from three parliamentary parties submitted their draft for consideration. The discussion was short lived. On June 21, the "anti-piracy" law was adopted in the third reading. The only person who voted against him was a Just Russia deputy

On June 26, the bill was approved by the Federation Council, and on July 2, it was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Its rules came into force on August 1, 2013.

Criticism in the Internet industry

Even before the "anti-piracy" law in the Russian Federation came into force, it was criticized by the largest domestic and foreign Internet companies (Yandex, Mail.ru, Google). Opponents of the project said that the new powers of Roskomnadzor would not only harm the copyright holders themselves, but also lead to censorship on the Web.

Also, Yandex noted that the deputies decided to adopt new standards for the entire industry without consulting with experts. The State Duma did not react to expert and public opinion. Internet companies asked if not to cancel, then at least to finalize the "anti-piracy" law in Russia.

Google called for pre-trial notice and content removal. The problem was that Roskomnadzor could block the site without even warning its owners and without giving time to correct errors (delete unlicensed products). Yandex specialists, among other things, added that it makes no sense to close the entire site. With the blocking of the site, the content that fully complies with the law becomes inaccessible. Therefore, experts noted that it is best to block banned products by direct link to it. In this case, the rest of the content will not be affected.

Fighting blockages

When the "anti-piracy" law in the Russian Federation was just adopted in the Duma, many experts in the Internet industry said that blocking by IP address was pointless. The mechanism of this procedure is as follows: Roskomnadzor cannot remove the site and destroy prohibited content, so the agency closes the “doors” leading to the site for users. This is done with the help of Internet providers. Operators operating in Russia receive a notification from the government that a particular site is now blacklisted. The provider blocks the traffic of users who want to visit it.

But these measures do not harm the site itself. He continues to work on his own server. It can be opened in the same mode abroad, where Roskomnadzor has no authority. Therefore, immediately after the adoption of the law, various technical means of bypassing blocking began to gain popularity in the Russian segment of the Internet. For example, anonymizers direct user traffic to an IP address in another country. Thus, a person who wants to download something on the Internet can easily bypass the blocking.

Negative consequences of the law

Yandex and Mail.ru also asked the deputies to take into account the experience of foreign countries in the fight against piracy. The companies decided that the mechanisms of Roskomnadzor create the ground for abuses and offenses. For example, an agency can block a bona fide resource. Even if it happens by mistake, and not by malicious intent, the loss of the site owner will be the same.

The Russian Association for Electronic Communications presented to the public its report on what threatens the "anti-piracy" law in the Russian Federation. The essence of its shortcomings is that the owners of Russian sites will begin to "move" to other countries. This is done very simply. The entire Internet is divided into domains belonging to different countries. In Russia it is ".ru". If the owner of the resource "transports" it to the conditional ".com", then this will be an additional blow to the entire domestic segment of the World Wide Web.

Experts asked for amendments that would smooth out the sharpest corners. In their opinion, the law should not violate the foundations of the functioning of the free Internet. In addition, some market participants began to fear that the new rules would be a tool for solving the commercial problems of certain copyright holders at the expense of site owners.

Public reaction

Many Internet sites, as a sign of their disagreement with the new norms, temporarily stopped their work on the day when the "anti-piracy" law in the Russian Federation came into force. The date of signing this document was the impetus for the consolidation of various participants in the virtual network. On August 1, 2013, more than a thousand sites shut down their servers. Protests also took place on the streets. Thus, the "Pirate Party of Russia" held several rallies and concerts in large cities.

The collection of virtual signatures for a petition to the authorities has begun on the Internet. According to the rules, in order for the initiative to be submitted for consideration to the State Duma, it must be supported by at least one hundred thousand people. The required number of signatures was indeed collected in the very first weeks after the adoption of the bill. However, this did not lead to any noticeable consequences. The petition was rejected in October 2013.

The adoption of the law was the reason for the unification of supporters of the fight against unlicensed content. Thus, the largest online cinemas in the country have created an association called "Internet Video". The participants agreed to jointly develop the market for legal products on the Internet - films, series, etc.

"Eternal Blocks"

One of the most resonant events associated with the adoption of the law was the "perpetual blocking" of the popular torrent portal Rutracker.org. This site has a wide variety of content. Even before the adoption of the law, the owners of the resource closed distributions with files, the copyright holders of which complained about their placement on the Web.

In 2015, the large publishing house EKSMO filed a lawsuit with the Moscow City Court. According to his decision, the site was blocked. The publishing house demanded the closure of 320,000 distributions created over the ten years of the portal's existence. The owners of the site held a vote among users on their resource. Respondents were asked how they feel about closing hands. The reason for this conflict between the tracker and the publisher was the "anti-piracy" law in the Russian Federation. The article, or rather, Federal Law No. 187, states that in the event of two defeats in the courts, the site should fall under “perpetual blocking”.

The Rutracker case

"Eternal blocking" - access to the entire site, and not just to those materials that were recognized as unlicensed. But how does such a ban differ from the usual one? In previous cases, Roskomnadzor restored access to Internet sites if their owners removed pirated content.

Rutracker.org was threatened with a ban without time limits. Users of the site spoke in favor of preserving controversial materials. On January 19, 2016, the resource fell under "perpetual blocking". Until that day, several million users visited the site every day. It was the largest Russian site of its kind.

Internet users against Roskomnadzor

The story with Rutracker clearly showed what the "anti-piracy" law in Russia is capable of. Is this document accepted or not? Yes, it is already operating in the entire Russian segment of the Internet. Rutracker became one of its most significant victims.

After blocking, the number of users visiting the site fell several times. However, the audience quickly mastered the tools to circumvent Roskomnadzor's prohibitions. Within a few weeks, the traffic on the site returned to its original values ​​(before the blocking). In addition, Rutracker forbade copyright holders to appeal distributions. After that, the site was flooded with illegal content, with which the "anti-piracy" law fought.

Audio piracy

Users of other resources also came up with their own ways to protest against the decision of Roskomnadzor. In addition to video products, a huge amount of pirated information is contained in audio files. The largest repository of music in the Russian segment of the Internet is the social network VKontakte. Its leadership has always complied with the instructions of Roskomnadzor and responded to the complaints of copyright holders, whose entries were posted by the audience on their pages.

However, users of the social network, just like in the case of Rutracker, found a way to bypass the blockages caused by the state's fight against piracy. People who uploaded music began to rename the songs so that the system could not determine that the file was in the restricted content directory. As a result, the social network was again flooded with pirated materials.

For the new season of their favorite series, illegally downloaded from the Internet, the Russians will have to fork out. The Russian authorities are considering introducing a system of fines for consumers of pirated content. Copyright experts say such a measure would be completely ineffective. According to them, it is not bans that will help oust pirates, but the availability of legal products.

At the moment, interdepartmental consultations are underway in the authorities on sanctions for fans to download a film for free without SMS and registration. As a working option, the initiative of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, which proposed to allow pre-trial blocking of sites that distribute illegal content, is being considered. However, the Ministry of Communications and leading Internet providers did not support the initiative.

If the appropriate amendments to the anti-piracy law fail, the fighters against illegal video products have a plan B. They propose to collect money from violators using a special system, similar to which is already operating in Germany. The fact of illegal downloading will be determined by the user's IP address. According to it, a home or legal address will be calculated, where a receipt with a fine will be sent. In European countries where there is a system of personalized fines, consumers of unlicensed content have to pay up to 1,000 euros.

Those familiar with the consultations told reporters that panellists recognize that user penalties are more effective in combating Internet piracy than blocking websites. As the history of blocking the storage of torrent files and other web resources has shown, even the most inexperienced users can easily bypass it.

Officials also said that at the preliminary stage, they are discussing the introduction of a system of fines for illegal viewing of only domestic film production - films that have a national film certificate. The state is ready to spend resources to protect the copyrights of Russian studios. There is no talk yet about protecting the legitimate interests of foreign filmmakers. In addition, all consultations at the moment are not official.

The idea of ​​penalizing users is not new. In 2014, a similar amendment to the anti-piracy law was introduced by Sergei Zheleznyak, a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. However, the norm was not included in the final text of the bill. Experts then decided that it was “too early” to introduce such responsibility in Russia.

The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, on the one hand, believes that it is wrong to shift the responsibility to users, especially since often not only viewers, but also professional lawyers do not fully understand where the line lies between permitted and prohibited content. On the other hand, Nikolai Nikiforov, the head of the department, although “I’m not sure that it (fines) should be introduced in the Russian Federation straight away”, believes that the distribution of illegal video is “always the responsibility of both the one who posted the pirated content and the one who consumes it deliberately in a pirated manner." According to Nikiforov, there is no ideal model for combating piracy, but blocking "mirrors" would be the most effective way in Russian conditions.

Copyright experts say penalizing users is a losing strategy in the first place. According to the head of the Internet Video Association, Aleksey Byrdin, it is not the users that should be prosecuted, but the criminal business involved in counterfeit content. “It turns out that we don’t want to fight pirate sites or we don’t know how, so we’ll go fight users. And not with those who download, but with those who consume,” says Maxim Ryabyko, head of the Association for the Protection of Copyrights on the Internet (his the words are given by RNS).

Pavel Rassudov, chairman of the headquarters of the federal convention of the Pirate Party of Russia, says that it is illegal to fine users: in our country there is already a compensatory fee for digital media in the amount of 1% of the cost, which covers the losses of authors from the free distribution of information on the Internet. In addition, it will be technically very difficult to control "illegals": "Is it technically possible to track users who download information? Theoretically, this can be done through providers. But how to do this with encrypted traffic? There are many ways to secure, change your IP, exit and download via VPN" (quoted by Rosbalt).

Sargis Darbinyan, head of the Center for the Protection of Digital Rights, also refers to the simplicity of anonymizing users on the Internet, who also considers the proposed method of combating piracy to be ineffective. According to him, cited by Life.ru, personalized persecution of users around the world is being abandoned, and Germany, to which the authors of the initiative refer, has remained perhaps the last country where they are still trying to fine for illegal downloading.

Blogger and screenwriter Oleg Kozyrev is sure that the authorities should aim not at repressive measures, but at balancing the interests of the filmmaker and the viewer. The problem is not that people don't want to pay for movies, but that legal content is hard to come by. "The threat of fines won't stop people. They download illegally for two reasons: either they can't find what they want to watch legally, or they don't have the money to buy it legally. It's hard to deal with that, and it's better not to go through fines, but so that legal content becomes available to the viewer. Firstly, films should appear more or less quickly in digital libraries. Secondly, the price of viewing should be close to people's real incomes," the expert said.

Presidential adviser on Internet development Herman Klymenko was also skeptical about the idea of ​​introducing fines for illegal downloading of films. On the radio station "Life Sound" he said that this measure is untimely. "Even if we suddenly wanted to do this, protect copyrights so fiercely, it seems to me that both modern traffic encryption and modern VPN protocols simply will not ensure the quality of this work and discredit it. Therefore, I would not support this story yet," - he said.