Yandex anti-piracy initiative not approved by copyright holders



    On October 9, in Roskomnadzor, a previously scheduled meeting of rightholders with representatives of Yandex took place, as reported by RBC. In addition to Yandex, the meeting was also attended by representatives of Mail.ru Group, Gazprom-Media, the Association of Film and Television Producers. The meeting was led by the head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov.

    At the meeting, the company named its requirements for the document, which was informally called the “anti-piracy memorandum”.

    It is reported, in particular, that Yandex is not against entering into an agreement with the right holders, but only if the document reflects the position of Internet companies. The main requirement is to attach a scanned copy of the Moscow City Court on the preliminary provision of copyright to the application of the copyright holder for restricting access to pirated content.

    It is worth recalling that the confrontation between Yandex and copyright holders began in August of this year. The Moscow City Court satisfied the requests of four TV channels at once, including Gazprom-Media (TNT, TV3, 2x2 and Super) to limit access to pirated copies of the TV shows in the Yandex.Video section. Then, in August, Roskomnadzor announced the possibility of blocking Yandex.Video in the event that the company did not remove the pirated content at the time specified by law.

    Media companies believe that Internet companies should remove pirated content and links to it without a court decision and prior provisional measures. Roskomnadzor, according to participants of the meeting, agrees with the owners. “Either this is self-regulation, and then without courts. Or state regulation, but then what kind of a memorandum is this? ”Said Zharov.

    According to one of the participants of the meeting, the signing of the memorandum simply makes no sense, since the mechanism of preliminary provisional measures is already laid down in anti-piracy legislation. According to the same participant, the memorandum should become something of a counterpart to the US Millennium Copyright Act in force in the United States.

    To obtain the definition of the Moscow City Court need a few days. But in the case of, for example, a live sports broadcast, it is almost pointless to go to court - the sporting competition has already been watched.

    Also, with the filing of Yandex, a number of conditions were discussed. For example, the copyright holder who signed the memorandum cannot sue the Internet company. If one party sues the other, then the memorandum does not apply to it at all. It is clear that this situation does not suit rightholders, and the litigation of the Gazprom-Media channels with Yandex continues.

    For an Internet search engine, it is important that other telecommunication companies, including Mail.ru Group, connect to it in this matter. A company representative said that the best way to interact with Internet sites and copyright holders is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, in the case when the company has at least 24 hours to remove illegal content.

    Ilya Grabovsky, a representative of Yandex, believes that “a transparent and equally applicable solution for all key Internet services” should be fixed at the legislative level. However, prior to the entry into force of the relevant law, an industry memorandum can be used. The mechanisms that need to be laid down in this memorandum are the subject of lively discussion.

    Previously, the right holders stated that search engines provide the main traffic to pirated sites, and the share of Yandex in this case is about 80%. Google deletes content at the request of the rights holders, which makes it possible to speak about the functioning of the principles of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in Russia.

    Right holders in the early summer of this year saidthat “Yandex” quite often shows illegal resources in search results, and we are talking about fairly high positions of such sites. In the opinion of the right holders, the funds that “could be reinvested in the industry through the distribution of legal content” go to illegal distributors using the various possibilities of Yandex. Among others - advertising promotion of the search engine as a tool for accessing illegal content.

    After that, the proceedings began, which are still ongoing. When the conflict will be settled, it is unclear.

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