One of the countries that presents particular challenges to the United States is old enemy Russia. Of course, relations have warmed somewhat in recent years and the world is a safer place as a result, but seeing eye to eye on infringement issues will take a while yet.

The United States feels that Russia needs to show more respect for U.S. intellectual property rights and has been openly critical, for example, of the state of the pirate movie and music scene there. However, perhaps what is less known is that Russia isn’t happy with U.S. efforts to protect its home grown products either.

According to a confidential diplomatic cable dated 13th November 2009, U.S. Russian embassy officials met with Ministry of Economic Development Deputy Minister Stanislav Voskresenskiy to discuss the upcoming United States/Russia IPR Working Group meeting, scheduled to take place in Washington, DC just a few days later.

Voskresenskiy told the meeting that Russia’s record on IPR enforcement had been on an upward trend in the previous 12 months. However, the cable notes that while Voskresenskiy said that pirated goods are now more difficult to buy, he admitted that since Russia’s record is so poor, “a positive trend was not difficult to accomplish.” Actual achievements, he added, would be presented at the Washington meeting.

What follows is an interesting take by Voskresenskiy on the current state of world IPR enforcement and a clear indication that the Russians do not believe that the problems lie exclusively with them.

“Voskresenskiy went on to state that, in his opinion, no country in the world is prepared to fight Internet piracy. He argued that all existing laws, including laws in the U.S., are antiquated and do not address new technological trends,” the cable reads.

“As an example, [Voskresenskiy] stated that YouTube and Google (as YouTube’s owner) should be shut down because they do not conform to current Russian IPR laws. He admitted that this was not feasible, but continued to emphasize that these entities need to follow local laws, even if the laws are outdated,” the cable adds.

But just as Hollywood and the music industry criticizes Russian piracy of U.S. products (the AllofMP3 controversy as just one small example), Russia’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development says that the United States needs to sharpen up too.

“Voskresenskiy also raised two issues [embassy officials] have heard from other sources: a) that Russian made movies are being pirated and sold in the U.S., cutting into Russian box-office sales, and b) that there are U.S.-based Internet sites selling pirated Russian movies for download,” notes the cable.

“Voskresenskiy stated that Russian delegation members to the Working Group are eager to discuss these issues with their U.S. counterparts.”

This and other cables reveal that the Russians believe U.S. / Russia discussions on intellectual property rights are “unbalanced”. However, the fact that the Russians are prepared to discuss the negative effects of piracy on their domestic rights holders is seen as a positive by embassy staff and actually present a great opportunity “to begin engaging the Russians on cooperative efforts to improve IPR protection.”

Rest assured though, the quid pro quo won’t include shutting down YouTube or Google. Hopefully the Russians won’t get any ideas about blocking “rogue sites” that don’t respect their local laws….

Source: Russian Minister: YouTube and Google Should Be Shut Down For Copyright Infringement

The obvious intent was clear – to prevent groups which have the promotion of criminal acts at their core, such as the Pedophile Party, the Kill-all-Jews Collective, or Kidnappers Anonymous – but these are unambiguous terms.

When it comes to the term “Pirate” then there are increasingly two meanings. The first is that of the ‘classic buccaneer’ as famously portrayed by Johnny Depp, and often found acting off the east coast of Africa.

The second is a label more often thrown at someone accused (often wrongly) of sharing a data file.

However, the Russian Government clearly hasn’t heard of the second definition, which is odd when you consider that events surrounding sites like Allofmp3.com became an international issue for them a few years back.

As a result of this name misconception, the name Pirate Party was rejected. Furthermore, the party didn’t get all the formal notices from the Justice Ministry which would enable them to deal with the rest of the paperwork. So, in an attempt to move things on, they sued, and earlier this month, according to the Russian Pirate Party, the Judge ruled that the March rejection counts as the missing paperwork, and they should find another name.

The current frontrunner is Bez nazvaniya (“unnamed”) but other options include “Pirrate Party of Russia” and “Pira7e Party of Russia” according to a blog post by chairman Pavel Rassudov, which ends with the following plea:

I would like to conclude with stating that our principles, ideas and our website remain unchanged. I ask the public, journalists and all reasonable people to continue calling us “Pirate Party of Russia”

Fine by us, Pavel….

Source: Judge: Pirate Party Name-Ban Decision Stands

The Russian Justice Ministry has turned down the Russian Pirate Party for registration because it says “piracy is an attack on sea of river craft, which is a criminal offense,” according to the Moscow Times. The Ministry also says that the name implies that members are all criminals serving prison sentences thus violating Federal law

While that accusation has been leveled before (by a UK member of the Commons, during the Digital Economy Bill debate), then it was only at Rick Falkvinge, then party chairman and now occasional TorrentFreak columnist, also the founder of the Pirate Party movement back in 2006.

Understandably, the Pirate Party is upset, and has filed a protest at Zamoskvoretsky court in Moscow. ”Refusal to register a ‘Pirate Party of Russia’ offends 15,000 of the party members whom the Russian Ministry of Justice has called criminals. We are going to appeal the Justice Ministry’s decision in court,” says party chairman Paul Rassudov.

Lola Voronina, the Chief Administrative officer of PPI, and also a PP-Ru member told TorrentFreak: “The government doesn’t want any new parties to be registered – there isn’t much time left until the elections. So they are trying to find some reasons like this to decline registration.” When asked about the prospects of the challenge, Voronina told us: “We don’t know. But we definitely need to try!”

“The Russian Ministry of Justice made a curious mistake,” she continues. “The name, ‘Pirate Party of Russia’ reflects an ideology accepted worldwide. We are not a party of pirates attacking sea or river vessels for the appropriation of other people’s property. Could they regard two European deputies from Sweden’s Pirate Party and many other pirate parties across the globe as criminals?”

Of course, democracy in Russia is contentious. Back in October, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warned of problems in Russia’s democracy, accusing Prime Minister Putin of attempts to stay in power. Meanwhile the Democracy Index has them at 107, almost in the “Authoritarian regime” grouping.

Source: Russia Refuses to Recognize Pirate Party, Because of Its Name

Although the casualties on all sides during World War II were absolutely horrendous, the losses suffered by the then U.S.S.R were staggering – almost 27 million people lost their lives.

Last September a World War II veterans choir held a concert in Samara, one of Russia’s largest cities. At the free event they sang those songs that helped them through the fighting and have provided them with nostalgia since.

However, the Russian Authors Society (RAS) has now filed a claim with the organizers of the concert. It appears that since the war songs the veterans sang are copyrighted, fees have to be paid to RAS. Understandably the veterans are pretty upset and many simply don’t understand what is happening.

“We sang to convey an educational message to our grandchildren,” said one performer. “And we have to pay for that? Is this not a crime?”

In order for the songs to have been performed legally at the event, a licensing agreement should have been entered into with RAS, something which was not done, says RAS Deputy Director, Oleg Partin.

The controversy prompted an announcement in the lower house of the Russian parliament that the Arts Committee should be convened immediately. Copyright is there to fight piracy, they said, not to fight veterans.

“This is nonsense! It is unacceptable that those who sing the wonderful songs of WWII will have to pay a bribe,” said Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov. “I believe that in this case insanity grows stronger and stronger. Now it has arrived at complete stupidity.”

On May 9th 1945, Russia celebrated the end of the Great Patriotic War. The 65th anniversary of that day arrives in just a few weeks and it now seems that RAS is trying to make amends for the hurt caused earlier. They are suggesting that changes should be made so that singing war songs on that day is a free activity.

Source: World War II Veterans Must Pay To Sing War Songs

In the past 24 hours, TorrentFreak received a flurry of reports that users of Demonoid in Russia could no longer access the site. After checking with some of our own Russian contacts and testing via a server located in St Petersburg, we are able to confirm that at least so far, accessing Demonoid is impossible from Russia. Reports suggest the problem started a day ago.

Traceroutes carried out from several locations across the country to Demonoid’s IP at 62.149.24.66 show that they are all terminating at ColoCall, the biggest data center in Ukraine – just one step away from Demonoid’s servers.

TorrentFreak’s tests from both European and Russian IP addresses both routed through the ColoCall IP 62.149.2.108 – the Russian test was blocked at that point while the European one completed perfectly. Tests by a Russian BitTorrent user on our behalf confirmed it was necessary to use a proxy for both the site and the the tracker to gain access.

It’s hoped that the blockage is temporary and a technical issue but of course, Demonoid has blocked countries before. TorrentFreak has contacted ColoCall but thus far, we’ve received no response.

We’ll update this post when more information comes in.

Update: Several reports coming in that Ukranian IP addresses may also be blocked.

Source: Demonoid BitTorrent Tracker Blocked for Russians

So Tuesday last week, May 26th, the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs Investigation Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs conducted a raid against the founders the Interfilm BitTorrent tracker.

During the raid on the site’s Moscow headquarters, the police arrested the founders of Interfilm, a married couple known online as ‘Ripper’ and ‘Nadezhda’ and several site staff. The authorities claim that the Interfilm tracker is a major source of cammed movies and also has an arrangement with piracy groups outside the country to exchange the latest releases.

Russian anti-piracy group RAPO (a founder member of the MPA) claims that the site carried advertising and although users had free access to the site, higher download speeds could be achieved by making a payment to the site’s owners.

Although Interfilm reportedly went down after the raid, it is now apparently fully operational, hosted by LeaseWeb in The Netherlands.

Russian media is speculating that the owners of Interfilm are facing up to six years in jail and a fine of 500,000 rubles (approx $16,200) if convicted under Part 3 of Article 146 of the Criminal Code.

According to lawyer Victor Naumov, a legal loophole which saved the owners of AllofMP3 is unlikely to help the operators of Interfilm. “In the past there were different interpretations of legislation in the field of copyright, but now if a distributor of films or music is not in a licensing agreement with the rights holders, the violation is right there,” he said.

Following the arrests, the Producers Guild of Russia says it intends to push for changes in the law which would force ISPs to prevent illegal file-sharing.

Source: Russian Police Make Arrests In First Ever BitTorrent Raid

Until today there was no law in Russia that protected copyright holders from internet piracy. The new law allows sentences up to 5 years in prison, equaling online piracy with other forms of copyright infringement.

The anti-piracy law is an important factor in determining whether Russia’s can join the WTO.

The present amendments were ratified back in 2004, but content providers had until today to acquire the appropriate licenses, and register their activities. However, only a handful of content providers actually took the time and effort to go legit.

As the Kommersant notes:

Experts estimate that 97 percent of music spread in Russian Internet now is still piratic, and many mp3 websites sell western music to western customers. Legal Internet market is estimated at less than $1 million per year, while the turnover of just one of the major illegal Russian websites, offering some 850,000 of musical tracks for 12—15 cents, reaches up to $25—30 million, according to different estimates.

Russia president Vladimir Putin, and other world leaders discussed piracy earlier this year at the G8 summit in Petersburg

Source: Russia toughens Piracy laws