Russia Considers Creating A List Of ‘Unfriendly’ Copyright Holders To Infringe On
from the in-putin's-russia,-copyright-infringes-you dept
Fascist kleptocrats sure do love their lists, don’t they? Way back in March, when Vladimir Putin decided to invade a sovereign neighbor, we discussed how Russia was contemplating simply legalizing software piracy in the wake of crippling sanctions to try to keep the Russian economy as stable as possible. That Russia would take such a step came to the surprise of exactly nobody, of course, but there were questions as to how such a thing would work with parties that are not sanctioning Russia, such as China.
The answer appears to be lists! One Russian official has proposed that Russia create a registry of countries “unfriendly” to Russia at this time, ostensibly so that parties from those nations could be infringed upon due to their unfriendly status.
Anatoly Semyonov, the head of Russia’s Parallel Import Association, has proposed creating a registry of “unfriendly” copyright holders, according to the newspaper Kommersant. Semyonov reportedly raised the idea at a roundtable discussion held by the Russian Federation Council. According to a copy of Semyonov’s proposal obtained by Kommersant, the new registry would theoretically include copyright holders that support sanctions against Russia and that refuse to sell their products on Russian territory.
Under the initiative, all types of intellectual property would be included in a single registry, while “countersanction measures” would be selected individually by regulators and courts for each copyright holder.
It’s a shortsighted plan at best. As some within the Russian government and economy have already pointed out to Semyonov, this will simply turn into an arms race. Trying to route around sanctions by legalizing copyright infringement will only result in more sanctions that cannot be routed around in that fashion. And, despite what it may seem like today, it’s not as though this war in Ukraine is going to on forever.
At some point, one way or the other, Russia is going to find itself without a war to fight, but plenty of sanctions remaining in place. That is, unless Russia manages to negotiate peace in a way I don’t expect, or should disruptions or eliminations within the Russian government take place. Neither of those are terribly likely.
So all this would do is give Russia access to some software and IP it might want/need today, all while setting up more animosity with Western nations and further cementing the country’s role as a villain on the world stage.
with friends like these
Filed Under: copyright, infringement, russia, sanctions
Comments on “Russia Considers Creating A List Of ‘Unfriendly’ Copyright Holders To Infringe On”
'... Wait, where's all the money we were supposed to have?'
They are going to be so surprised when they find out that copyright infringement is not in fact wildly profitable and the source of untold riches as certain individuals and groups like to portray it as.
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The losses to the entertainment industry will be orders of magnitude more than all of the money on the planet. Oh the horror!
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Not just that. It wasn’t too long ago the copyright cult prophets of the MPAA made the claim that piracy furthered terrorism, drug dealing and pedophilia…so if a nation-state rather than just the average citizen indulges in it wholeheartedly I’m sure the result will bring the western world to its knees soon enough.
/s lest one of the old copyright maximalists somehow still on these forums spots this comment and sockpuppets twenty heartfelt “likes” to it.
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I don’t give out likes that easily.
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But it can maintain income for cinemas and other businesses that use foreign content.
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That, and their “list” of unfriendly outfits is sadly likely to leave them with a scarcity of outfits to pilfer. The BSA plays a decent Mussolini to Putin’s Hitler is all I’m saying.
Russia has done a lot that can be called villainy. Copying software and movies doesn’t even come close, and there are still those that disagree with the perjorative term “piracy” being applied to these actions—if you’ve got some media, and someone else wants it, sharing is just basic courtesy. And I certainly wouldn’t see it as reasonable for Russia (or any country) to enforce the copyrights of “out of print” materials.
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Copying software and movies doesn’t even come close,
Depends on who you ask, to hear copyright maximalists tell it copyright infringement might as well be right up there with intentionally decimating entire economies and is so heinous and destructive that every industry and company on the planet should be expected if not required to do everything they can to stop/prevent it.
Re: Re: Require register fee and renew every year
Simple solution: require all copyright land lord need pay register fee in Russia. Every 2 years need rẻnew. If sanction no allow pay fee, automatic public dómain.
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Well, as another commenter pointed out, the “losses” they claim can be greater than all the money in the world. Yet somehow the copyright holders, who remain too poor to pay Darth Vader, manage to pay spokespeople a lot of money to express those maximalist opinions. Among people who aren’t making truckloads of money from copyright, though, the opinions are quite different. Youtubers, for example, seem to view it as a hindrance that afflicts them at random.
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The alternative is to let criminals control your economy. That is known to be a path where noone wins. Mafia will take over such areas of the world and bring blackmail, extortion, robbery, war and copyright infringement to your doorsteps.
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*looks at the RIAA, MPAA dictating copyright policy, Disney literally extending copyright, corps using copyright as a form of censorship…
You were saying, Shame of Finland? Not like you’d care, you support these Mafia/legalized crime cartels anyway. ANd these people are way, way worse than Pablo Escobar and actual CIA-propped crimelords anyway.
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I prefer to think of it as “Bucaneering” myself.
Nothing in the article looked like particularly convincing reasons for Russia to not go ahead, if copyright infringement is actually one of their plans.
Once the Ukrainians have finished with them they’ll negotiate some sort of surrender in return for a whole lot of natural gas and oil I would imagine.
Promising not to copy Spiderman DVD’s will be Clause 37, Paragraph IVB.
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I maintain that if you don’t dress in period-appropriate clothes if you do copyright infringement, it’s not called “piracy”.
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Consider that the official assertion by the MPAA and RIAA is still a “loss” per song which makes the torrent index on TPB alone worth about 42 times as much money as exists in the world. And unbelievably that estimate was used to set statutory damages in the DMCA.
I don’t think there are enough zeroes in math to properly estimate what a pirate copy of a recent Marvel-movie DVD would compare to in dollars.
You’d have to give them Texas in equitable return.
i can just imagine the thought process: “Haha, what will they do, infringe works from the Russian Federation in turn?”
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Actually, they’ll start by fast-tracking Finland and Sweden’s entry into NATO first.
I mean, it’s Russia that needs protecting from it’s neighbors…
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If you’ve been watching Library Genesis lately, you’ll know they’ve been posting books much faster than usual in the last month or so—thousands per day—and a hell of a lot of them seem to be Russian.
Just as well, perhaps to remember the lessons of WWI and WWII about sanctions and reparations. And perhaps those of Iraq and elsewhere about Regime Change.
Re: Regime Change
Libya is actually the poster child for regime change and unintended consequences. Once they got rid of a controlling government in Libya, their coast turned into a free-for-all for profiteering human smugglers exploiting desperate third-world refugees, and a nightmare for Mediterranean nations trying to stem the tide coming at them.
Russia is busy running up its tab on what reparations it will owe to rebuild Ukraine once it is fully driven from their territory. Sadly, Putin likely will not be around to see this, but the Russian people will feel the effects.
Copyright will be small potatoes. Back in the day, Taiwan was excluded from international treaties like copyright and was a source for expensive college textbook reprints at a fraction of the retail cost. Infringements coming from Russia would be a minor annoyance except in the mind of a few executives.
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LOL. Russia is villain to you copyright cultists. But not to me. Your villain is a hero to me. Russia sucks but if Russia does this, it’s a liberator. Russia sucks as an oppressor of Ukrainian people but with this, it would sucks less.
Get over yourselves, copyright cultists. You are the villains. Your ideology is evil. What gives you the right to oppress people in name of greed? Culture is meant to be shared, not locked up behind paywalls for a lifetime of a generation plus. Free up culture. End this Blanket Digital Copying Prohibition. End this censorship. End this inequality of access to culture. Wealthy people should not be over-favored over the poor people as to access to culture. Abolish Copyright. Ideas and expressions should not be privately owned. They belong equally all to humankind like our water and air.
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Sir, we criticize copyright maximalists here.
And also, Russia is doing it because their tinpot dictator basicaally started a war he couldn’t fight.
We’re technucally talking geopolitics here.
Coolest thing Russia has done recently, but it’s true they should just legalize it across the board.
This makes no sense in the long run russia needs to make peace with the west as it has a western style economy it depends on imports and exports from other countrys attacking the concept of copyright on movies or tv just marks it out as a rogue state and invites more sanctions in the future
Please tell me they’re going to name their list the 1301 List.
Movie Industry: This is horrible! They’re going to pirate all the films that we weren’t licensing to them in the first place! Now they’re not going to be paying us for the films that they weren’t paying us for before!