Mail.Ru Group has begun another round of talks with Western rights holders about legalizing the music available via its resources – including Russia’s largest social network VKontakte (VK.com), – reports business daily Vedomosti, citing the company’s employees.
The LSE-listed Internet group is being assisted in the negotiations to legalize the music on all its social networks by one of the most recognized lawyers in the American music industry, Joel Katz, who has already arrived in Moscow.
Although Mail.Ru Group has been negotiating with the largest foreign music rights holders – Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music/EMI – for some time, they have not yet been able to reach an agreement, since the corporations are naming prices that are not suitable for Mail.Ru Group.
“Each major corporation has calculated on receiving $3.5 million a year from all of Mail.Ru’s projects, but the Russian company is only willing to pay that amount to the corporations together,” says a source from Vedomosti.
Mail.Ru Group and VKontakte’s press offices told Russia Beyond The Headlines that they hope that “during the next round of talks common ground will be found and that milestone agreements for the entire internet market will be reached.”
Hoster not responsible
Vedomosti also reported that Vkontakte has made a request to the Office of the Unites States Trade Representative not to include it in its list of copyright violators, known as the Special 301 Report or ‘Watch List.’
The department’s website published the letter from VKontakte chief lawyer Maria Klimenko and VK.com General Director Dmitri Sergeev. In the letter they underline the fact that the social network forbids the downloading of illegal content as part of its user agreement, and that the company cannot be held responsible for the actions of users or external developers who access content via the site.
The letter also mentions the fact that rights holders can get in touch with the social network’s administrators in order to request the removal of pirated content. Up to now, the company has processed around 450,000 of these requests, of which only 60,000 were turned down.
VKontakte is also currently involved in a battle with app stores over the downloading of content from the site. It is worth remembering that the VK app for iOS was removed from AppStore in 2012 for a lengthy period, only returning in July of this year after the free music service had been limited to 30-second clips.
Last month, in a letter to the US Government, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) included Vkontakte in a list of websites which it accuses of facilitating IP rights breaches.
