In yet another investigative deadlock only too common for cybercrime cases in Russia, Moscow police have suspended what could have become a bellwether inquiry into a copyright infringement offence, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported earlier this week, citing an official police source.
A 27-year-old Muscovite has been suspected of having “replicated and disseminated” 18 copyrighted music recordings from his personal page on the leading Russian social network Vkontakte.ru in late 2010 and early 2011. But he has never been arrested or even positively identified, the police had to admit.
In January 2011, the claimant, Russian music company Nikitin, which owns the rights, told investigators that the files had been downloaded by other users 200,000 times, with a financial loss estimated at 108,000 rubles ($3,600). Since then, no information has been disclosed. A spokesman for the social network told Vedomosti that the police had not provided any information on the alleged perpetrator nor mentioned whether there was any progress in their investigation.
The Nikitin complaint still remains Russia’s first known case in which a social network user was under investigation for Internet piracy. Several months ago, the Russian police’s C-department, which is tasked with combating cybercrime, announced it planned to crack down on copyright violations and piracy, but there has apparently been no perceptible headway in that direction. Investigators have not responded to Vedomosti’s requests for comments.
According to Russian law, unless the defendant is identified – something which law enforcement feels is unlikely to happen – the case will be closed for good.
Most market players agree that the police dropping the ball in such important cases sets a bad precedent. However, some, like Universal Music Russia CEO Dmitry Konnov, think that prosecuting pirated music users is a waste of effort; moreover, it pushes users even further from legal downloads and onto pirated services. Police should be after the providers, they say. The consensus is that whoever finds piracy commercially lucrative must be prosecuted.
