Precedent

    This week, the St. Petersburg Court of Appeal decided to recover 1 million rubles from VKontakte in favor of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. The fact itself is no longer news for the Habrovsk citizens ; the reaction of the participants ranges from wary to enthusiastic . We believe that there is no reason for joy in the decision of the second instance - moreover, for no one in Runet. A precedent is being created, which can have a very negative impact on the life and development of the network.



    The main reason for concern is not at all the existence of claims on the part of the copyright holders (work with copyright holders is part of the company's daily life and is carried out normally). The problem is that VGTRK filed its lawsuits without first contacting the service administration. The former manager of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company assures us that we were flooded with letters, although VKontakte has not yet missed a single official request, as evidenced by the fact that this is the only lawsuit in the history of the company. And the head of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company himself confirmed the absence of a notice to Vedomosti : “The All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company has repeatedly suggested discussing the use of its content - though not these two films, Mednikov notes.” Here "discuss" - not to raise the issue of protecting their rights, but to earn money on joint projects.


    It's not a million


    Following this logic, as correctly noted in a recent post on Habré, copyright holders will be able to put pressure on any Runet resource. Upload your content, record it and go to court for a million. Then start to “agree” on something. VGTRK recently proposed spending the awarded million on VKontakte advertising in exchange for cooperation. It is cooperation on favorable terms that the company has been trying to achieve from VKontakte since 2008, using all available tools - from campaigns in the “unbiased” broadcast of Vesti.net to claims without an out-of-court settlement of the issue. Unfortunately, in cases of copyright protection, it is very rarely a matter of really talking about protecting rights - for the protection of rights there are completely different, more effective (and working) tools.

    “We have repeatedly said that we are actively cooperating with copyright holders and are promptly deleting content at their request. Many of them have access to moderation. For example, such rights are given to Internet Copyright Management, the film distribution companies Volga , Bazelevs (representing Bekmambetov's interests). VGTRK, bypassing all international practice, filed a lawsuit on VKontakte without notice. Of course, we could not know about the availability of this content, but deleted it immediately after the lawsuit was filed. In addition to working with copyright holders, we have developed a system that prohibits downloading files that were once deleted as violating the rules of the site. And we continue to take measures to simplify the work with copyright holders.

    This court decision is incompatible with the development of the Russian Internet. Naturally, we will appeal it until it complies with world practice. Our strategy is based on the president’s remarks about the development of the Runet and its compliance with global standards, ”says Pavel Durov.


    By the way, cooperation with copyright holders may not necessarily be based on the removal of content alone. For example, today VKontakte launched the application from ivi.ru. Users will be able to watch licensed video content for free, including the series of the same Alexander Akopov. Using standard tools, ivi owners can get access to moderation of VKontakte videos and in one day become a unique provider of their content on our site.

    Statistics


    VGTRK and the media controlled by it in their arguments rely on the myth that the VKontakte video service is the main reason for the popularity of the resource. Statistics do not confirm this. Daily VKontakte is downloaded and sent:
    • 100,000,000 private messages;
    • 25,000,000 wall posts;
    • 12 million new photos;
    • 100,000 videos;
    • 100,000 audio recordings.
    Video pages are viewed 50 times less often than photo pages. It is clear that viewing one video takes longer than viewing one photo (the average VK video recording time is 4:12). However, it should be borne in mind that viewing an album with 200 photos and 500 comments uploaded by Ajax is also considered a single viewing.

    In general, video pages account for about 3% of user activity.

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