Russia’s Government Will Not Put Pirates To The Wall

[Guest Ethan]

Russia’s Government Will Not Put Pirates To The Wall

To avoid the disastrous effects of misdirected copyright enforcement (see the case of the United States), but still keep piracy at bay, the Russian government has announced that is ready to adopt a different approach.

Governments from around the world desperately tried to put an end to piracy, either by dragging thousands of alleged infringers into copyright lawsuits or by going after the source – file-sharing services. Unfortunately for them neither worked. As a matter of fact, their efforts only increased the popularity of file-sharing websites, and did little to nothing to stop them from spreading. Their lack of inspiration to find a suitable solution – such as creating more virtual places where legal content can be purchased, understanding that there’s a vital difference between “hardcore pirates” and the usual BitTorrent user, and, why not, come up with improved copyright laws that do not undermine our freedom of speech and human rights – eventually led to an increase in popularity of what we know as graduated response systems. Their declared purpose is to educate the regular internet user about copyright and copyright infringement; however, this method is not enough for rightsholders, who continue to target file-sharers by the hundreds of thousands.

Taking the stand at Read Legally – Russia’s initiative to quench the thirst for knowledge in a legal manner, Vladimir Grigoryev (head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) said:

“We do not plan to hold Internet users liable for downloading as they do in the U.S., where owners of computers can end up in court.”

This doesn’t mean, however, that piracy will be welcomed with open arms by Russia. The Russian government is determined to impose stricter rules when it comes to websites that facilitate copyright infringement.

“Responsibility [for illegally downloading copyrighted content] will be placed on the owners of pirate websites,” Grigoryev said.

He continued by saying that Russian file-sharers will soon be the subjects of educational programs similar to those in the United States.

“[File-sharers] will enter an educational campaign,” he said.

Details about the campaign are scarce, at least for now, but the Russian government seems to be confident.

Time will tell whether the country’s entertainment industry, who had been sending complaints about VKontakte and AllofMP3 clones for years now, is going to be satisfied once these campaigns kick in or not.

Stay tuned!