Month: February 2016

“We fill in legal vacuum. It is not about mass media. Their activity is already regulated enough.” – said Alexey Kazakov, one of the draft law authors. He believes news aggregators must handle information very responsibly: whether republish trustworthy mass media, which verify information, or bear responsibility if they publish information without its verification. “Aggregators have more influence than mass media. But we don’t want to make unbearable conditions for them (but, in fact, draft law makes it) therefore we grant only to relevant authorities, but not to citizens, the right to submit a claim to Roskomnadzor.” – said Kazakov. He also admits Russian market can lose resources with foreign participation (where foreign participation in companies share is more than 20%). “There are ideological manipulations, and we must control them and minimise foreign influence.” – underlined Kazakov.

First of all, it was decided to give definition of news aggregator. If you have software for computer or you are owner of web-site or/and one single web-page in Internet, which are used for processing and dissemination of news information in state language of Russian Federation, state languages of subjects of Russian Federation or other languages of people of Russian Federation, and if on such page or web-site can be placed advertisement in order to attract customer’s attention, residing in Russian territory and if daily quantity of visitors is more than one million Internet-users – you are news aggregator under draft law.

Right holders did not wait with reaction. They are going to complain to Russian president about his counselor on internet for “greedy ghouls” and his refusal to bring apologises – said CEO of group of companies “Prior” Rodion Pavluchik. “I’m also ghoul, therefore I’m on their side. How you can maintain conversation with boors? It seems it is not possible to handle it otherwise. We will address to president. I believe such counselors discredit our president, they don’t converse with industry, insult people, calling them ghouls and at the same time protecting blunt theft. We will insist on his fallacy in this issue.” – said Pavluchik.

He did not even read this open letter published by major Russian right holders. German Klimenko one more time confirmed he is not going to deny his own words “greedy ghouls” in relation to right holders. He assumed that right holders, who requested him to apologise, can be those who lobbied the law about permanent blocking of domain Rutracker.org. But there is one detail. Permanent blocking is a result of law implementation; the law was not adopted to specially block Rutraker.org and perhaps right holders can consider opportunity to block domain affiliated with German Klimenko. Perhaps Russian president’s counselor also concerns about?

Chiefs of major Russian movie companies have replied to Klimenko. They published open letter, where their position has been explained. Chiefs believe Klimenko made bold mistake. “Let’s think about together… Ghoul is deadman rising from a tomb, drinking blood of people and undermining household. Let us not concern such “ghouls” like Steven Allan Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Coen brothers…” Authors of letter expressed hope that Klimenko will bring his apologies for careless dropped phrase and right holders will accept them kindly. They are sure, Klimenko is ashamed of himself. They also stated their position in relation to piracy.

Right holders, demanding moneys and protecting their interests, can be called greedy ghouls said German Klimenko. In such way he commented permanent blocking of Rutracker.org due to right holder’s complaints. In tough time it is necessary to bend before customers’ needs and bring prices down, he believes.

At the meeting of governmental council on cinema support Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev discovered permanently blocked web-site Rutracker.org is available for visitors. He has visited web-site from his personal iPad. First Channel’s CEO Konstantin Ernst claimed current applying mechanisms implemented to fight internet-piracy don’t work, after blocking of web-site under court order illegal copies promptly appear on dozens of other web-sites. Court orders also are not always executed. He said “Rutracker is permanently blocked in Russia, but it is still available.”

At the meeting with participation of Roskomnadzor it was decided to draft a law in order to block copies of pirate sites on other domains. In Russia, as well as in other countries, blocked websites move to other domains. Under current law Moscow court has no opportunity to block new domain address (mirror) of pirate website automatically. If blocked web-site moves to new domain, right holders must apply for blocking again. Therefore right holders together with Roskomnadzor decided to develop draft law which equates mirror sites to blocked sites as reported izvestia.

Russian Roskomnadzor’s CEO Aleksandr Zharov predicts business of torrent-tracker Rutracker will be over in few months. “I believe it is turning point. Advertisers will go away, and as long as Rutracker is original mass media its business will be over in few months. Efficacy of blocking and decrease of traffic achieved 75%. Administration of website should make its choice – to be good guys or operate under different domain name.” – he said during its lecture in Moscow State University.

RBC published main points of draft law and explained what it means and how it can be implemented. Russian ministry of communication has developed amendments to laws “About communication” and “About information, its protection and informational technologies”. Main purpose of this draft law is control over internet traffic. If the draft law will be adopted, a new official state register of IP addresses (for Russian segment of internet – RUnet) can appear.