Three major court cases involving violation of electronic copyright came into the spotlight in Russia over the past two weeks, revealing a steady – though controversial – progress in the application of copyright related legislation in the country.
Book publisher vs. search engine
At the end of June Russian publishing house AST Press came away with a victory in the Moscow Arbitration Court in a legal battle with the country’s most popular search engine Yandex. The publisher filed a lawsuit last October demanding that Yandex stop the illegal usage of Mikhail Lvov’s Dictionary of Antonyms of the Russian Language on its portal.
AST, which holds exclusive publishing rights for the dictionary on the Internet, was awarded 500,000 rubles, about $17,700, in damages from Yandex instead of the 5.3 million rubles, or $188,000, it had initially demanded. In addition, the court also ruled that Yandex had to pay AST litigation fees, amounting to 5,372 rubles – $191. AST said it was satisfied with the ruling and has offered Yandex and other Internet companies a deal to begin using its dictionaries on a paid basis.
Yandex is expected to appeal the court’s decision. The search giant claims its use of the dictionary was legal.
Since Russian courts do not use case law, the ruling will not necessarily be a precedent in future litigation on similar matters.
Record label vs. social network
Russia’s largest social networking website VKontakte, which served 23.78 million Russian users aged 12 to 54 this May according to the latest TNS data, has handed over the IP addresses of some ten users to the Gala Records/EMI record label. The move was made in an attempt to settle out of court a suit brought by the record label against Vkontakte accusing the social network of the illegal publication of copyrighted recordings by the Russian band Infinity and singer Maxim. The suit, filed in the St. Petersburg Arbitration Court, seeks 1.15 million rubles, or $41,000 in damages.
VKontakte claims that it only provides web hosting services for its users and therefore isn’t liable for copyright violations – only individual users can upload potentially copyright protected content on the VKontakte website. Gala Records/EMI is not satisfied with this response, however. According to record label representatives, it is impossible to determine the identity of copyright violators exclusively though using IP addresses since computers used to upload the bootleg recordings could be used by several persons. Gala Records/EMI also argues that physical parties do not earn anything using the social network, in contrast with VKontakte itself.
Last March, the Russian Supreme Arbitration Court settled another dispute between Vkontakte and leading Russian television channel RTR regarding the presence of unlicensed content uploaded and used on the site. The court ruled that Vkontakte was not responsible for user copyright violations.
“In the Gala records vs. Vkontakte case – if an out of court settlement couldn’t be reached – the court’s decision would likely be the same as in the RTR vs. Vkontakte dispute, in favor of the social networking site,” IPR and Internet law expert Anna Gutnikova told East-West Digital News. “So I think Vkontakte just wants to minimize risk and avoid a legal battle with Gala.”
Police vs. ISPs
In late June, three Russian Internet service providers, IPTP, RETN and RusComNet, blocked user access for one month to seven websites located in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Great Britain in response to an order issued by the Bureau of Special Technical Measures (BSTM), a cyber-crime prosecution arm of the Russian Interior Ministry.
The order was issued by BSTM in response to a claim filed to the police by Russian film company Central Partnership. The latter claimed that its new movie ‘Svad’ba po obmenu’ (Marriage Swap) had been made available for download through the seven forenamed sites. According to recent Russian legislation that went into effect on March 1, police can request companies to take measures to prevent crimes and administrative violations. Previous legislation did not compel companies to heed such preventive orders from law enforcement agencies, making it impossible for ISPs providers to block access to various websites until after the pronouncement of corresponding court rulings – a procedure that often takes months.
The case of IPTP, RETN and RusComNet is the first of its kind in Russia, a police representative told Russian business daily Vedomosti. BSTM also issued a similar ruling to six other providers: Komkor, TransTeleKom, VimpelCom, MTS, Rostelecom, and Rascom, which revealed reluctance on the part of many providers to take the order seriously, reported Vedomosti. Vimpelcom said it did not receive the order. MTS has said it could not comply because it does not own the web properties the police have asked to block and does not bear responsibility for the information transferred through its network, an MTS spokeswoman told Vedomosti. TransTeleKom justified its refusal to bide by the order because it could lead to a violation of citizens’ rights to access the Internet.
Surprinsingly, the vice president of local anti piracy association Russian Shield also supported providers. In an exchange with Vedomosti, Oleg Yashin explained that “piracy should be fought, but it isn’t worth using censorship and traffic filtration. A court ruling is needed first.”
“Preventing access to sites with illegal content is an effective measure of struggle against copyright violations on the Internet,” Anna Gutnikova commented to EWDN. “Providing the police with rights to demand such measures is also a necessary step. In the absence of any legal limitations, however, these rights can be misused in various ways, from attempts at censorship to unfair business practices.”
Sources: CNews, Kommersant, Vedomosti
