Russia’s largest social network, VKontakte – also known as VK.com – has appealed a court order to reimburse lost profits from a pop singer’s songs hosted on its website. This is one of many scandals involving VKontakte, which the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has accused of being one of the most important players in the audio piracy market.
The owners of the VKontakte social network have appealed a court order that requires them to pay Gala Records $17,700 – or $1,600 per song – for hosting 11 tracks by Russian pop singer MakSim.
VKontakte has invoked an unofficial rule that has taken root in Russia, returning inquiry results saying “searches for the music in question have been blocked following a lawsuit from the copyright owner.” This is exactly what Rutracker (one of the world’s largest torrent trackers of music, games, movies, TV series, books, maps and other copyrighted materials) does. They only block file-sharing after receiving a complaint from the copyright owner.
VKontakte has been dogged by controversy for some time now. Some of the scandals are related to copyrighted content. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) placed VKontakte on the list of the main culprits behind the 30-percent collapse in Russia’s music market in 2012. It called VKontakte “one of the world’s worst pirates,” hinting at the network’s unfair competitive advantage stemming from its stolen music offered for free – something its rivals just do not do.
Gala Records made a similar reference during the litigation, as it demanded much greater compensation for hosting its music and tried to convince the judge that the social network’s revenue is directly driven by the fact that it offers free music downloads. The judge rejected the argument.
The full version of this story has been published on Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH.RU), an international source of political, business and cultural news and analysis.
