As a result the United States Trade Representative has labeled the site a “notorious market” on several occasions. While VK has taken some steps to address the issues this year, copyright holders are far from satisfied.

This week the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which represents MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry groups, called out VK as one of the worst piracy havens around. The U.S. Government is organizing a hearing on Russia’s WTO implementation and in a request to testify the IIPA points out that piracy is rampant in the country.

“Russia is home to several of the U.S. Government’s ‘Notorious Markets’ for copyright piracy, especially digital piracy,” IIPA’s Eric Schwartz writes (pdf).

“One such Notorious Market is vKontakte, the most popular online social network in Russia, and the largest single distributor of infringing music in Russia; it is also a hotbed for online piracy of movies and television programming.”

Despite the numerous complaints that have been submitted to the Russian authorities, widespread piracy remains a problem on the social network. Last year Russia implemented a new law that would allow copyright holders to have structurally infringing websites blocked, but attempts to target VK have failed thus far.

“To date, the Government of Russia has taken little or no action against this site, or the other sites or services identified by the U.S. and other foreign governments and copyright rightsholders. This is symptomatic of the problems of ineffective enforcement in Russia,” Schwartz adds.

The critique of VK is not new. The MPAA and other copyright holders have complained about it for years. Having this in mind, we were surprised to find that several Hollywood studios still advertise their content on VK.

In recent months copyright holders have been lobbying advertising networks to stop doing business with so-called pirate sites. However, major movie studios including Warner Bros see no problem with having a presence on VK.

Below is a screenshot of the VK profile of Warner Bros. Russian branch, which currently has 146,780 members. Aside from promoting new movies, they also list several music tracks they don’t appear to hold the copyrights to.

Warner Bros. is of course not the only studio with an official VK account. Universal Pictures has a dedicated page for Russian fans too, and so do Disney, Marvel and 20th Century Fox.

The above are just a few examples. There are many other companies represented by the IIPA who have a profile on the “notorious pirate site”, Microsoft included.

So instead of asking Russia to take action against the site, shouldn’t these companies stop advertising on it first? Considering the fact that they place VK in the same category as The Pirate Bay, that would make sense.

Or perhaps the Hollywood studios will create an official Pirate Bay profile, to start uploading trailers of their latest movies there as well…?

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As a result the United States Trade Representative labels VK a “notorious market”, a particularly unhelpful label for an operation with big ambitions.

But now, in a move designed to allow the company to move forward, VK has reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding with Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecoms watchdog.

The memorandum, which represents a consensus of how Internet companies should deal with pirated movies and offer legal alternatives, has already been signed by representatives of 36 Internet sites. Until now, however, VK has refused to sign.

According to the document, reported by Izvestia, VK has agreed to block infringing content “within a reasonable time” and look towards the introduction of fingerprinting technology. This will enable the site to effectively deal with the reappearance of content already taken down by rightsholders.

A source in Roskomnadzor said that VK will sign up before the start of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on May 22.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In several Special 301 Reports published by the United States Trade Representative, Russia’s Facebook equivalent has been criticized for the huge quantities of unauthorized media it hosts. As a result it is currently labeled a “notorious market”, a term usually reserved for piracy’s apparent worst-of-the-worst.

In common with many user-generated sites, VK allows its millions of users to upload anything from movies and TV shows to their entire music collections. Unlike Facebook and other major players, Russia’s social network has been very slow to adopt anti-piracy measures.

Three major record labels – Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music – have now taken their concerns to the Saint Petersburg & Leningradsky Region Arbitration Court. The labels accuse VK of running a service that facilitates large-scale copyright infringement and are demanding countermeasures and compensation.

The record labels have asked for an order requiring VK to implement fingerprinting technology to delete copyrighted works and prevent them from being re-uploaded. In addition, Sony, Warner and Universal are demanding 50 million rubles ($1.4 million) from the social networking site to compensate for losses suffered.

“VK’s music service, unlike others in Russia, is an unlicensed file-sharing service that is designed for copyright infringement on a large-scale,” IFPI’s Frances Moore says in a comment.

“We have repeatedly highlighted this problem over a long period of time. We have encouraged VK to cease its infringements and negotiate with record companies to become a licensed service. To date the company has taken no meaningful steps to tackle the problem, so today legal proceedings are being commenced,” Moore adds.

VK has yet to respond to the accusations. Russia’s telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor previously said that VK was trying very hard to better their anti-piracy practices, but these efforts apparently came too late.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In several Special 301 Reports published by the United States Trade Representative, Russia’s Facebook equivalent has been criticized for the huge quantities of unauthorized media it hosts and labeled a “notorious market”, a term usually reserved for piracy’s apparent worst-of-the-worst.

The problem stems from the fact that vKontakte allows its tens of millions of users to upload anything from movies and TV shows to their entire music collections. This content then becomes available for anyone to enjoy, from members of the site to complete outsiders. Many of the big, free MP3 download sites on the web are powered by MP3s pulled from vKontakte, so this is not just a Russian issue.

In response to the complaints, earlier this year the company confirmed it had deployed fingerprinting technology, similar to YouTube’s Content ID. Whether this would be enough to appease rightsholders would remain to be seen, but in a statement this week the head of Russia’s telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor said the site’s actions should be enough to remove it from the USTR’s list.

“VKontakte is now in active dialog with all the rights owners,” Alexander Zharov said. “It is my hope that, given the progress in their relations with the owners, VKontakte will be excluded from the 301 list.”

So good news for vKontakte then? Well, not so fast. Let’s not forget that it’s the Hollywood studios and major recording labels that provide the fuel for the Special 301 Report and if they aren’t happy, the USTR isn’t going to be happy either. And all the signs suggest that they are far from content.

In fact, according to reports in Russian media this morning, the major labels are getting ready to take vKontakte on in the traditional way – via lawsuit.

National Federation of the Music Industry chief Leonid Agronov says that Sony, Universal, EMI, Warner and other rights owners have run out of patience and will sue the social network after the holiday period is over.

“This year, we have tried all the civilized ways of influencing the state, society and the Internet industry. Next year we will be much more aggressive and brazen. We have spent four years trying to normalize the situation to somehow move piracy beyond the law,” he said.

NFMI members are said to be preparing to sue in the St. Petersburg Court of Arbitration in an attempt to have at least six thousand pieces of music removed from vKontakte, including works from Beyonce, 50 Cent, Eminem, Jay-Z, Madonna, Skrillex, Linkin Park, Metallica and Pink Floyd.

Agronov said that the labels have tried to negotiate with the site in order for it to begin paying for the music it hosts with a suggestion it shifts those costs to its users, but apparently vKontakte is interested in neither. It nevertheless profits from advertising while its users listen to unauthorized music, he added.

According to Izvestia, the legal action could take up to a couple of months or even a couple of years, depending on the determination of each side.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Even when an action gets underway it can be months or years before the matter is brought to a conclusion and despite having a pretty decent success rate, it is relatively rare for rightsholders to tackle their rivals in this manner.

More popular at the moment is to impact a site’s traffic in a particular region by appealing directly to a court. If a judge can be convinced that a site is causing immediate damage to a copyright holder that is likely to continue unless action is taken, having that site blocked at the ISP level is now a very real option in several countries across Europe.

Understandably people are concerned that the path could lead to serious overblocking and today we have the first signs that shadowy sites such as The Pirate Bay won’t be the only ones to face being censored.

VKontakte is Russia’s version of Facebook. It is a massive operation with upwards of 45 million daily users. The site allows its users to upload video and audio content which of course means that some will store copyrighted material. According to a company called Medusa Film, the site has been hosting a copy of its film Sole a Catinelle (Sun in Buckets).

Medusa Film is owned by Mediaset, a communications and media giant founded by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and owned by his family. According to their complaint, something dramatic needed to be done against not only VK.com but a range of other file-hosting sites actively making their content available.

The Public Prosecutor of Rome agreed and has now issued an order for all local Internet service providers to begin a blockade of vKontakte and several other hosting sites including Rapidgator.net, one of the largest file-hosters around.

The remaining sites to be blocked include movshare.net, nowdownload.ch, nowvideo.ch, topvideo.tv, upshared.com, usefile.com and videopremium.tv.

Marco d’Itri who runs Osservatorio Censura, a site dedicated to reporting on Italian web censorship, informs TorrentFreak that action is being taken before a hearing on the full merits of the case.

“As usual this is an ‘urgent’ confiscation request which happens well before a trial,” d’Itri explains.

It is not known whether Medusa reached out to vKontakte, Rapidgator or any of the other sites involved before they decided to go to court with a request for a web blockade. In any event, it seems unlikely that the two big ones will sit back and do nothing.

Earlier this year Rapidgator successfully fought back against another web blocking action initiated by the distributor of a cartoon movie. Fulvio Sarzana, a lawyer with the Sarzana and Partners law firm who specializes in Internet and copyright disputes, represented the site and convinced the court that Rapidgator was not responsible for user uploads.

The case with vKontakte is considerably more broad. The site is equivalent to Facebook and as such Russian citizens in Italy will now find themselves not only disconnected from files, but completely cut off from their social networking contacts.

However, as the number one visited site in Russia, VKontakte has incredible resources. Putting up a defense in a case like this should be well within its capabilities and there is a very real possibility that the decision will be overturned in due course. For the others (Rapidgator aside) the outlook seems much less positive.

Update: Fulvio Sarzana informs TorrentFreak that although not formally instructed in the case by Rapidgator at the present moment, he feels the site should appeal.

“Once again they have seized dozens of portals for a single film, which among other things, has already made 50 million Euros at the box office,” Sarzana says.

“Millions of files are being seized for a single film, a measure that appears disproportionate and contrary to European standards in terms of proportionality, adequacy and effectiveness of the measure.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As a result the site has drawn criticism from record companies around the world and earlier this year was sued by a local label.

In June 2013, Studia Soyuz claimed that VKontakte was infringing its copyrights on more than 60 tracks and should therefore pay damages of 4,575,000 rubles ($144,000) to the label. The case has now been concluded and it didn’t go well for the company.

According to a statement on the website of the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and Leningrad, Soyuz were left high and dry after the court held that Vkontakte could not be held responsible for its users’ infringements.

The Court did recognize that VKontakte’s users had posted several dozen Soyuz-owned tracks to the file-sharing network but noted that none of VKontakte’s operators were directly involved in the “downloading, recording or dissemination” of the music detailed in the lawsuit. As a mere communications platform, VKontakte could not be held liable for its users’ actions provided it took action to remove unauthorized content once informed.

The judgment also considered some of the practicalities of holding the social network liable for the many hundreds of millions of actions carried out by its users every single day.

The Court recognized that it would be impossible to monitor all of the submissions to the site and accepted that assessing whether those submissions were also copyright-infringing would be beyond VKontakte’s abilities. Some artists, Soyuz’s included, had previously uploaded their own songs to the social network.

As a result the Court concluded that if any copyright infringing activity had taken place it would be the responsibility of the users who carried it out and VKontakte could not be held liable.

While the decision will be welcomed by the social networking site, it is believed that VKontakte may soon become a useful ally of the music industry.

Earlier this year the site’s founder said that talks were underway with Universal, Warner and Sony with a view to making their content available to the site’s users as part of a licensing deal.

Any positive agreement along those lines would be welcome by the United States Trade Representative, who previously labeled VKontakte a “rogue site.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The social networking giant allows its 40 million daily users to upload their music collections meaning that the site has become one of the world’s largest sources of unauthorized music to be found anywhere on the planet.

Making matters worse for the labels is that content stored on vKontakte has often been made available for download through numerous other apps and websites utilizing the company’s API.

As a result vKontakte has been branded a “notorious market” by the USTR and put under pressure by the likes of the IFPI, who say that the huge Internet business has built itself up on infringing content. Following years of inaction, there are now signs that vKontakte is beginning to listen.

In June 2013 before the implementation of Russia’s new anti-piracy law, reports surfaced that music was becoming harder to find on vKontakte with results for some leading artists drawing blanks.

The company put this down to copyright holders sending many more takedown notices than ever before. Indeed, it soon became apparent that some companies had previously been given moderator access to remove their content from vKontakte directly. Nevertheless, rumors began to circulate that vKontakte might have deployed some other kind of anti-piracy system.

The company has since admitted that it has developed a technology designed to stop users from uploading content that has previously been marked as infringing.

“For each track which receives a copyright holder complaint we create an acoustic impression,” said vKontake spokesperson Lobushkin George. “Downloading the exact same copy will be difficult.”

The system is not without its flaws. One local artist, Noize MC, complained that he would like to make his music available on the social network but since someone already marked someone else’s upload as infringing, the system now bans him from doing so. Another artist, DJ Dmitry Diamonds, said that after sending in a complaint of someone infringing his copyrights his own uploaded music disappeared from his official page.

But despite the teething problems, it appears that vKontakte intends to expand the system.

According to content owners who spoke with Izvestia, vKontakte will now introduce fingerprinting in order to tackle infringing video uploads at source. Representatives from the social networking site declined to comment but sources at several media companies suggest that the the anti-piracy system will be similar to YouTube’s Content ID.

At least three media companies have struck deals with vKontakte to publish their content legally on the networking site alongside the ability to remove infringing content with fingerprinting.

“There is currently only one type of interaction: illegal content is removed in response to a request from us,” said deputy general director of CTC Media Sergei Petrov. “We look forward to the new tool, as it can greatly facilitate the fight against pirates.”

According to Amedia president Alexander Akopova the fingerprinting technology was vKontakte’s idea. It will remove the need to constantly search the site for illicit content and will also eliminate problems caused by users renaming files.

“The management of VKontakte made the right move by creating such a system,” says Akopov. “I am glad that it was their own initiative.”

Wide agreements on a filtering and takedown system with copyright holders will help vKontakte avoid many of the perils of the new anti-piracy law introduced August 1. Currently the social networking site can be bombarded with complaints which have the potential to take the site offline if not properly handled, but formal agreements might be enough to keep rightholders happy.

It’s even possible that these moves will be enough to appease the USTR, IFPI and MPAA. Finding out should be just a few months away.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In total around 1,700 sites and services took part in a SOPA-style ‘blackout’ in an effort to show how the law, which allows for pre-trial blocking of websites, could effect the nation.

A petition against the legislation has also been gathering lots of support. On Tuesday when TorrentFreak spoke with Pirate Party of Russia press secretary Natalia Malysheva, signatures were at 55,000. Today almost 75,000 have made their mark.

The law allows rightsholders to file an official complaint about any sites carrying infringing content or links to the same. Failure to remove that content in a timely manner can lead to entire domains being blocked at the ISP level.

Wasting no time, yesterday a local movie company was first out of the blocks. Distributor Kino Bez Granits (Cinema Without Borders) filed a lawsuit in the Moscow City Court against social networking giant vKontakte.

Company boss Sam Klebanov said the site was carrying copies of five of his movies included titles from Steve McQueen and David Cronenberg. He added that he’d told vKontakte about the problem two weeks earlier but they failed to respond. Vknotakte denied that version of events.

“Cinema without Borders turned to VKontakte with the requirement to remove the movies. We provided VKontakte with a list of our films and asked them to take measures to eliminate our content from their portal, otherwise we would use the mechanisms of the new law and go to court, and we did that,” Klebanov said.

However, everything did not go smoothly.

Along with its complaint, Cinema Without Borders was required to show that the company is the legal owner of the movies in questions. The art-house movie distributor thought that copies of that documentation would suffice, but the court disagreed. The lawsuit was subsequently rejected on the basis of inadequate paperwork.

Vkontakte is yet to comment on developments but has spoken out in the past on the difficulties of policing a site with more than 45 million users, any of whom could upload illegal copies or links to infringing content.

Finally, vKontakte will make headlines today on an entirely different issue. Yesterday National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia which allowed him to leave Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.

The papers given to him by the Immigration Service not only allow him to live in Russia but also to work there and if vKontakte have their way, he will be doing that under their guidance.

“Edward Snowden – a man who denounced crimes against the citizens of the U.S. by intelligence services around the world – has received temporary asylum in Russia. At such moments, you feel proud of our country and regret towards U.S. policy – a country committed to the principles on which it was once built,” vKontakte founder Pavel Durov said in a statement.

“We invite Edward to St. Petersburg and will be happy if he decides to join our stellar team of programmers at VKontakte. In the end, there is no more popular European Internet company than VK. I think Edward might be interested in protecting the personal data of millions of our users,” Durov concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The site, which has around 40,000,000 users every day, is also a huge thorn in the side of the recording industry. VKontakte allows its users to upload music to their accounts for anyone to play and as a result the site has become one of the largest repositories of unlicensed music anywhere in the world.

The site’s operators insist that the responsibility for uploading infringing music lies with its users but music industry groups like IFPI see that as shifting the blame. IFPI insist that something must be done to stop businesses being built on the back of unlicensed content. They may soon get their wish.

As reported yesterday, Russian-hosted services – vKontakte included – will soon face a new legal environment due to a shifting of responsibility for illegal uploads. Following the approval of a new law in the State Duma on Friday, removing infringing content swiftly will soon be a priority matter if services don’t wish to find themselves blocked at the ISP level.

Although it has yet to become law, interesting things started to happen at vKontakte just before the bill received its majority vote on Friday. Site users began to notice that searches for popular artists, which at one time were extremely easy to find, started to throw up notices that the content had been removed.

The scale of the takedowns become apparent when searches for popular artists such as Rihanna, Adele, Beyonce, Amy Winehouse and Coldplay all began to draw blanks. The user backlash was swift and vocal, with some complaining that their entire collections had been deleted.

“We always removed audio and video recordings when we were served the legitimate complaints from copyright holders, it’s just now such applications have increased,” vKontakte spokesman Georgy Lobushkin said in a statement.

The problem stems from complaints sent by the major recording labels. Universal Music told Russia’s Vedomosti that a letter had been sent to vKontakte via IFPI and the Goltsblat BLP lawfirm demanding the takedown of its content. While Sony and Warner have declined to comment, it seems almost certain that this is a coordinated action by the labels.

“We’re not going to remove all the music at all, or just Russian or foreign music, or just rock or just pop music. We will remove the specific compositions of certain artists. Most of the audio will remain on the site,” said Lobushkin for vKontakte.

“The musicians who are not afraid to share their art for free, will not go away. There is a lot of music in this world, and no one can impose their preferences or forbid people from listening to something.”

In the meantime, however, users of vKontakte seem intent on preserving their collections by any means possible.

There are reports in the Russian media that there are efforts underway to impose new naming conventions on files so that they won’t be marked for deletion by copyright holders. The group Coldplay, for example, are now known as “Cold Game”, Selena Gomez has been dubbed “Sweet Dwarf” and Maroon 5 are to be called “5 Dudes”.

The effort seems unlikely to succeed, but there are signs that users may still get access to music via vKontakte if things move in the right direction.

Unlike previous copyright holder actions against Grokster and more recently LimeWire, there doesn’t appear to be any desire to crush vKontakte with expensive lawsuits. In fact, all the signs suggest that the labels want to do business with the social networking giant.

“We would like to see VKontakte agree with us about the legal ways of using music,” says Universal Music Russia CEO Dmitry Konnov.

“Now this is the first step. We hope that it will eventually lead us to the negotiating table.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

But a few days later it was gone. Undoubtedly prompted by IFPI, BPI and the Big Four labels behind them, the British police arrested the owner of the domain. Despite no charges sticking, the operators pulled the plug on the project. What the labels could not do, however, was anything about the source of the music – VKontakte itself.

This problem was exploited during November by a new and altogether more powerful tool. The Mielophone app truly was Mulve on steroids, not only pulling music from more sources but integrating discovery, last.fm, a playlist and download manager, videos, lyrics and more.

But as history repeated itself, on February 16th the person who registered the Mielophone domain name received an email from EMI and Gala Records, which set in motion the death of this fledgling and promising application.

“As you probably know, our company actively protects its copyright and related rights in the territory of the Russian Federation, including via the courts and law enforcement agencies. The Mielophone software which, obviously, is connected to you (in any case, according to the technical information for your domain name) violates the copyright and related rights of EMI / Gala Records,” the email began.

The email then went on to state that the operation of Mielophone constituted a civil breach of Article 146 (Infringement of Copyright and Related Rights), which allows for imprisonment for up to 6 years.

Secondly, and most strangely, EMI and Gala then indicated that the Mielophone operators’ activities constituted a criminal breach of Article 273 – offenses which carry a maximum sentence of 7 years imprisonment.

Article 273 concerns the “Creation, use and distribution of malicious computer programs” as detailed below.

Creating computer programs or changes to existing programs, which obviously lead to the unauthorized destruction, blocking, modification or copying of information, disruption of computers, computer systems or networks, as well as the use or dissemination of such programs or machine carriers with such programs -shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term of three years with a fine of up to two hundred thousand rubles or the salary or other income for the period up to eighteen months.

The same act which negligently caused grave consequences, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term of three to seven years.

However, since EMI and Gala Records are very fine and reasonable people, something they were keen to point out to in their correspondence, the operators of Mielophone were given the opportunity to “close the issue with a peaceful pre-trial procedure”, i.e stop the Mielophone project and end its distribution.

TorrentFreak has learned that the people behind Mielophone wisely tried to seek legal advice but were met with an unhelpful legal profession – specifically when the lawyers they approached learned they would be going up against EMI. So, with little option, Mielophone is no more. The creators have made it very clear that they want to steer clear of legal action and won’t be reviving or revisiting the project.

In the meantime, the Mielophone.air installer remains available via Google Code and the Google search engine. Oh, and VKontakte is still up and doing its thing but they, of course, are easily able to retain lawyers and as such probably don’t respond to scary emails.

But this is the Internet, and it seems that the demise of this software hasn’t gone unnoticed. Already there is another group promising to bring out a new application to replace Mielophone although at this stage we were unable to get a comment from those behind it to find out more. We’ll persevere, investigate and report back in due course.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.