Jail for Russian p2p ‘pirates’
p2pnet.net News:- Unrelenting entertainment cartel pressure on Russia is having effect with the country announcing possible jail time, up to five years of it, for “internet pirates”.
Dan Glickman, who runs the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) for, and on behalf of, the Big Six movie studios, was in Russia at the beginning of the year ———– just as the US government was nearing the conclusion of its bilateral negotiations with Russia on the country’s possible inclusion in the World Trade Organization.
“Relatively lax intellectual property protection has been a stumbling block for the country’s WTO bid,” says Agency France-Presse. “The US, one of the only countries still refusing to endorse Russia’s WTO entry, cited intellectual property protection as a chief concern.”
Meanwhile, years of pressure from the MPAA, not to mention the Big Four Organized Music gang’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), “has convinced U.S. lawmakers and law enforcement officials that it’s worth using America’s muscle to protect movie and music interests abroad,” said The Washington Post recently, adding:
“Now, lawmakers are calling the trade groups, asking what else Congress and the government can do for the entertainment industry.”
Basically, the new Russian laws, “make legal the concept of ‘notifying everyone’ which brings the Internet under the jurisdiction of law,” says Kommersant.
“Thus, texts of books or mp3 music files published on the web have the same copyright protection as normal books or CDs, and come under article 146 of the Criminal Code of Russia (’Violation of copyright and allied rights’) which allows a punishment of imprisonment for up to 5 years for pirates.”
But, the story has Vadim Uskov, “head of law company Uskov and Partners,” saying, “If usual sellers of counterfeit goods are not caught on the street, then no one will catch the owners of websites in the Internet where it is hard to identify them.”
According to Uskov, Russia needs, “decisive measures, like in China for instance. They put the criminal responsibility for publishing pirate products on Internet providers, so the latter check their websites many times a day.”
Also See:
bilateral negotiations - MPAA turns attention to Russia, March 30, 2006
Agency France-Presse - Russian pirates face the brig, September 5, 2006
America’s muscle - MPAA, RIAA, US team up, June 15, 2006
Kommersant - From Internet to Jail, September 1, 2006
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