A recently leaked confidential diplomatic cable has revealed that not only is the United States government unhappy with the level of intellectual property rights enforcement carried out by Russia, but also that the reverse is true. Russia’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development said that not only do U.S. sites continue to offer pirated Russian movies, but that YouTube and Google should be shut down for not respecting local laws.
Back in March the Russian Justice Ministry turned down the Pirate Party’s attempt to officially register. The decision was made because the authorities feel that the word ‘pirate’ could be connected with criminal acts. Now a Moscow judge has backed that decision, leading the party to decide on a new name.
There’s been a lot of talk on copyright and Internet regulation at the G8 summit in France. This led to a statement titled “Renewed Commitment for Freedom and Democracy,” where several suggestions on the topic are written down. While the leaders of most countries backed the interests of a handful of entertainment industry companies, Russia’s [...]
The recognition of the Pirate Party in a US state might have been considered the last obstacle to overcome before widespread acceptance of the movement as a viable political force. Yet there might be another country more obstinate than the US when it comes to registering political parties, and that’s Russia.
Just a few days ago Russia’s Communications Minister announced that big web companies including Google and Russia’s Facebook equivalent Vkontakte are not responsible for the ‘infringements’ of their users. However, this doesn’t mean that copyright infringement of users goes unpunished, quite the contrary. “Russian prosecutors have filed criminal online copyright infringement charges against a 26-year-old [...]
Veterans of World War II who sang war songs at a free concert last year have now been told that they must pay fees to copyright holders. A collections society says they are owed money since the veterans sang the songs in public. The controversy has prompted an announcement in Russia’s parliament.
According to reports coming in to TorrentFreak and tests carried out by us, we can report that Demonoid has been inaccessible to Russian users for at least a day. It appears that for many other countries it is business as usual – Demonoid works just fine.
