Freedom Lopukhov

Remember the Lopukhovs case ? In their support, today I launched the site svobodulopukhov.rf (I barely managed to get to NG :), where you can put your signature on the petition to cancel article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation as applied to the Internet space - sign up and call friends! Gradually, I will publish case files and news from the court on the site. I believe that next year this process will become the main one in the Russian IT industry.

Like everyone else, I watched with interest the Lopukhovs' process, nevertheless a precedent case - how its outcome will be decided, so will the pirates in Russia. Since I myself use torrents and sit on VKontakte, the matter concerned me personally - I decided to help the Lopukhovs with something.

Remembering that I signed up for the Pirate Party of Russia last year, I contacted its leadership and found out that the Lopukhovs’s affairs were unimportant. RAPO exerts force pressure on them. Under the threat of copyright advocates, even the lawyer escaped from the Lopukhovs and they would have lost for the first hearing on December 7th.

I immediately learned that RAPO is not just zealous - the government decided to seriously weaken article 146, on copyright infringement and, most likely, RAPO will be left without work with new legislation, so they need a vivid precedent to show how economically dangerous piracy is . Accordingly, the punishment of the pirates needs to be tightened. But where to tighten it, if now for copying one film they give more than for killing a person. Literally, for killing with facilitators, they give from 5 years in prison, and from 146 give up to 6 years - can one film be more important than human life?



This situation needs to be changed. Fortunately, my friend’s mother has been working as a lawyer for thirty years, and just for copyright (for example, she worked with Viktor Tsoi), her colleague, who also agreed to conduct the case, works as a personal lawyer for Boris Akunin on copyright issues. After reviewing the case, both lawyers were um-um ... "surprised" - the whole charge is based on screenshots from the site interfilm.ru - they say, you see, there is a movie on the site and 46 downloads are written? Let's evaluate the damage, as if the 20th century Fox sold interfilm a license to rent their paintings.

How such a case came to court remained a mystery to us, but at the very first hearing the court had to return the case for re-registration to the prosecutor’s office, and a criminal case on abuse of authority was opened for the investigation team. This is the first victory, of course, it pleases, but to sue all Hollywood is a futile task - Hollywood knows and loves this business, he does not feel sorry for the money for the courts.

The Lopukhovs, due to the pressure of the RAPO, were left without work and live on the retirement of their elderly parents with two young children in their arms. At the same time, lawyers prohibit the collection of material assistance to the Lopukhovs, as it can be used against them in court. All I can help is to give this cause maximum public resonance.

Therefore, I decided to start with the “victims” themselves - I was the first to contact Smeshariki and it turned out that they had not filed any lawsuits, and in general RAPO did it without their knowledge. Smeshariki themselves are against this process and are ready to formally oppose the prosecution of pirates. The official answer will be in January, but for now I decided to draw the attention of journalists to the reaction of the Smesharikov and made a short film about how we conducted an action in support of the Smeshariks. I hope it turned out realistic :)