May 30, 2013 at 23:40Law on the Internet - A Quick Analysis
So, again, the whole Russian-speaking Internet community is excited: the lawmakers again took up the pen and began to come up with a new draft law directly relating to the regulation of the Russian-speaking segment of the global network. Almost all publications are teeming with news on this topic, and their printed colleagues did not stand aside. The effect of the latest news is comparable to the introduction of the registry of banned sites, but now it is much more relevant and applies not only to those who, in principle, should have understood that sooner or later they will “deal with them” (for example, you can talk for a long time about how free it should be to be Wikipedia, but the openness of such projects in itself is always balancing on the brink), but also of those people who already believed that they would not be made extreme. It’s about the law “On the Internet” and I would like to try to clarify what it is and how it threatens ordinary users. I want to immediately note that as a source I will indicate mainly copyright.ru. I do not set a goal to advertise this resource and generally have nothing to do with it - it is simply most convenient to find the necessary information on this topic on it.
The full title of the bill at the moment is “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in order to Stop Violation of Copyright and Related Rights in Information and Telecommunication Networks, including the Internet,” But I Will Briefly Call it “About the Internet” . It should be noted right away that attempts to refine the topic of intellectual property are made regularly, and often they always cause quite tough disputes. For example, in 2012, a bill made a lot of noiseNo. 47538-6 "On amendments to parts one, two, three and four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation." As for our “client” today, the first conversations about him began last year, saying that the Internet began to play such a significant role that it was time to put things in order. Initially, the amendments were planned to be formulated as a separate law, and to formulate in it, including such issues as, for example, cybercrime, but over time they abandoned such an idea - it was decided to simply amend the Civil Code and focus primarily on copyright and related rights. If we talk about the format of the introduced norms, then the correctness of the solution is obvious: copyright in itself is already too complicated a thing, and separating the particular manifestation of “working” with them into a separate law would be completely stupid. Such things cannot exist on their own - they must somehow work together with many other norms. Not just because the law “On Copyright and Related Rights” was included in the Civil Code.
The first more or less clear details about the law began to appear in January 2013, at the same time the first draft law was published , the essence of which was the obligation of the site owners to take, at the request of the copyright holder or notification of the provider, a number of measures, including the removal of illegally placed intellectual property objects, blocking access through Internet to the object of intellectual property, etc. Fines ranging from 3 thousand to 5 thousand rubles with or without confiscation of technical equipment for individuals and up to 500 thousand rubles for legal entities were foreseen as liability. The project was recognized as unsuccessful and sent for revision. In February, it became clearthat it’s worth waiting for a new “outbreak” already in the spring, and at the same time that Robert Schlegel, who, for a second, was the author of the bill “On the responsibility of media leaders for materials slanderous character. " Then they started talking about a certain “favorable business environment and legal platform for interaction between the state and society”, although at that time it was already clear that the concept of “interaction” when it comes to bills is an extremely amorphous thing.
It is important to take into account that in parallel with this bill, the initiative of a number of copyright holders was also moving forward regarding the creation of a register of "pirated" sites, like the "black list of Roskomnadzor", which I mentioned above. It is worth noting that similar ideas have visited the minds of many different people, but the latter was marked by the chairman of the Coordinating Council of Intellectual Property Protection. I want to draw your attention to the fact that this initiative was also discussed in the framework of the bill we are considering, but by itself it "exists" separately from it and, for a number of circumstances, is unlikely to be brought to its logical conclusion.
But what will change the law? In fact, they decided to throw everything at once here. In particular, just the other day, the issue of creating a state interactive registry of intellectual property for the digital sphere was discussed. I will explain. This is primarily about the registry of works - programs, music, films, etc. According to the plans of lawmakers, thanks to such a register, copyright holders will no longer have to contact the owner of the sites on their own - they only need to include their copyright object in the registry, and all sorts of VKontakte will begin to clean their sites. An old idea, like this world, about which I already wrote in my previous articles: why bother with work, if you can make others work for you. By the way, we thought about such a registrylast year, and it was with him, including the unsuccessful January bill. Another rule was applied to search engines: they were asked to independently ensure that pirated resources did not appear in the search results. I must say that in essence such a duty rests with all search engines operating in the United States, but in this case, the copyright holder must notify the resource that a link violates his rights. They also touched on the issue of torrent trackers, in particular, on the responsibility of their visitors for the exchange of pirated files. In this case, it is worth noting that it is more likely that we are talking more about the creators of distributions, and not about all users in general. And “releasers,” by the way, and within the framework of the current legislation, can be held accountable, for example, under article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
To our joy, many of these ideas have already been severely criticized and, most likely, will either be seriously refined or completely excluded from the bill.
Even more ridiculous was the situation with the interaction of lawmakers and the community. Initially, the project was developed to put it mildly, people with little understanding of what the Internet really is. And only on May 29 it became known that it was decided to start interacting with persons directly related to the industry - Yandex, Google and others. I must say that directly or indirectly, this has already paid off: at the moment, items obligating sites, in particular search engines, have been excluded from the bill without rubbing copyright holders links to pirated sites.
But I personally see the most interesting comparison of the bill with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act- the very law that everyone remembers when it comes to the regulation of copyright in the United States. In some ways, the law “On the Internet” can be correlated with the DMCA, but it is hardly worth calling it an analog. First of all, for the reason that the State Act provides not only the responsibility of persons posting content, but also the obligations of persons requiring the removal of illegal data in their opinion. In particular, for unlawful claims you can get a “return” in the form of a lawsuit. Nothing of the kind has yet been provided for in our case. By the way, YouTube, for example, does not work in the format provided by the DMCA. Results on the face: almost every month notes appear on how, for inexplicable reasons, the next video was deleted and the next channel blocked.
Well, of course, it was not without those who decided to "PR" in the law. For example, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said that he stands for the gradual, evolutionary growth of legal culture with a focus on world experience in this area and does not approve of tough decisions in this matter. Of course, the opinion of Mr. Naryshkin in this case is purely personal in nature and is hardly worth saying that this person is able to radically change the bill. Moreover, it is unlikely that the speaker has more experience in this matter than representatives of the same Yandex.
What about my personal opinion about the law? In a sense, all ideas in themselves are useful. They allow you to study in detail the current legislation, see the holes in it, try to find solutions. Another thing is how the studied will be processed. You can fight mosquitoes with fumitox and parcels from newspapers, or you can burn the whole house with napalm. It seems that the result as a whole has been achieved anyway, but the effect is different.
The full title of the bill at the moment is “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in order to Stop Violation of Copyright and Related Rights in Information and Telecommunication Networks, including the Internet,” But I Will Briefly Call it “About the Internet” . It should be noted right away that attempts to refine the topic of intellectual property are made regularly, and often they always cause quite tough disputes. For example, in 2012, a bill made a lot of noiseNo. 47538-6 "On amendments to parts one, two, three and four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation." As for our “client” today, the first conversations about him began last year, saying that the Internet began to play such a significant role that it was time to put things in order. Initially, the amendments were planned to be formulated as a separate law, and to formulate in it, including such issues as, for example, cybercrime, but over time they abandoned such an idea - it was decided to simply amend the Civil Code and focus primarily on copyright and related rights. If we talk about the format of the introduced norms, then the correctness of the solution is obvious: copyright in itself is already too complicated a thing, and separating the particular manifestation of “working” with them into a separate law would be completely stupid. Such things cannot exist on their own - they must somehow work together with many other norms. Not just because the law “On Copyright and Related Rights” was included in the Civil Code.
The first more or less clear details about the law began to appear in January 2013, at the same time the first draft law was published , the essence of which was the obligation of the site owners to take, at the request of the copyright holder or notification of the provider, a number of measures, including the removal of illegally placed intellectual property objects, blocking access through Internet to the object of intellectual property, etc. Fines ranging from 3 thousand to 5 thousand rubles with or without confiscation of technical equipment for individuals and up to 500 thousand rubles for legal entities were foreseen as liability. The project was recognized as unsuccessful and sent for revision. In February, it became clearthat it’s worth waiting for a new “outbreak” already in the spring, and at the same time that Robert Schlegel, who, for a second, was the author of the bill “On the responsibility of media leaders for materials slanderous character. " Then they started talking about a certain “favorable business environment and legal platform for interaction between the state and society”, although at that time it was already clear that the concept of “interaction” when it comes to bills is an extremely amorphous thing.
It is important to take into account that in parallel with this bill, the initiative of a number of copyright holders was also moving forward regarding the creation of a register of "pirated" sites, like the "black list of Roskomnadzor", which I mentioned above. It is worth noting that similar ideas have visited the minds of many different people, but the latter was marked by the chairman of the Coordinating Council of Intellectual Property Protection. I want to draw your attention to the fact that this initiative was also discussed in the framework of the bill we are considering, but by itself it "exists" separately from it and, for a number of circumstances, is unlikely to be brought to its logical conclusion.
But what will change the law? In fact, they decided to throw everything at once here. In particular, just the other day, the issue of creating a state interactive registry of intellectual property for the digital sphere was discussed. I will explain. This is primarily about the registry of works - programs, music, films, etc. According to the plans of lawmakers, thanks to such a register, copyright holders will no longer have to contact the owner of the sites on their own - they only need to include their copyright object in the registry, and all sorts of VKontakte will begin to clean their sites. An old idea, like this world, about which I already wrote in my previous articles: why bother with work, if you can make others work for you. By the way, we thought about such a registrylast year, and it was with him, including the unsuccessful January bill. Another rule was applied to search engines: they were asked to independently ensure that pirated resources did not appear in the search results. I must say that in essence such a duty rests with all search engines operating in the United States, but in this case, the copyright holder must notify the resource that a link violates his rights. They also touched on the issue of torrent trackers, in particular, on the responsibility of their visitors for the exchange of pirated files. In this case, it is worth noting that it is more likely that we are talking more about the creators of distributions, and not about all users in general. And “releasers,” by the way, and within the framework of the current legislation, can be held accountable, for example, under article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
To our joy, many of these ideas have already been severely criticized and, most likely, will either be seriously refined or completely excluded from the bill.
Even more ridiculous was the situation with the interaction of lawmakers and the community. Initially, the project was developed to put it mildly, people with little understanding of what the Internet really is. And only on May 29 it became known that it was decided to start interacting with persons directly related to the industry - Yandex, Google and others. I must say that directly or indirectly, this has already paid off: at the moment, items obligating sites, in particular search engines, have been excluded from the bill without rubbing copyright holders links to pirated sites.
But I personally see the most interesting comparison of the bill with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act- the very law that everyone remembers when it comes to the regulation of copyright in the United States. In some ways, the law “On the Internet” can be correlated with the DMCA, but it is hardly worth calling it an analog. First of all, for the reason that the State Act provides not only the responsibility of persons posting content, but also the obligations of persons requiring the removal of illegal data in their opinion. In particular, for unlawful claims you can get a “return” in the form of a lawsuit. Nothing of the kind has yet been provided for in our case. By the way, YouTube, for example, does not work in the format provided by the DMCA. Results on the face: almost every month notes appear on how, for inexplicable reasons, the next video was deleted and the next channel blocked.
Well, of course, it was not without those who decided to "PR" in the law. For example, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said that he stands for the gradual, evolutionary growth of legal culture with a focus on world experience in this area and does not approve of tough decisions in this matter. Of course, the opinion of Mr. Naryshkin in this case is purely personal in nature and is hardly worth saying that this person is able to radically change the bill. Moreover, it is unlikely that the speaker has more experience in this matter than representatives of the same Yandex.
What about my personal opinion about the law? In a sense, all ideas in themselves are useful. They allow you to study in detail the current legislation, see the holes in it, try to find solutions. Another thing is how the studied will be processed. You can fight mosquitoes with fumitox and parcels from newspapers, or you can burn the whole house with napalm. It seems that the result as a whole has been achieved anyway, but the effect is different.