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Anti-piracy law of Culture Ministry to help settle disputes over illegal web content -NFMI

The bill suggests that responsibility for hosting illegal content on Internet sites should be borne by the owners of the sites

MOSCOW, May 31 (Itar-Tass) - The bill to combat piracy on the Internet developed by the Russian Ministry of Culture will make it possible to relieve the courts of cases linked with disputes over illegal content, head of the National Federation of the Music Industry (NFMI) Leonid Agronov said on Friday.

“We hope that after the creation in our country of a quality legal framework for combating piracy, especially after the adoption of the law that has been developed by the Ministry of Culture, such cases will not be overloading the courts, but will be quickly and efficiently settled out of court,” he said.

At present, many disputes between copyright holders and Internet sites are resolved through courts. The NFMI said that the Gala Records company this week for the third time won a cassation against the social network Vkontakte for illegal use of audio records of singer Maxim. The Federal Arbitration Court of the North-West District satisfied the company’s demand and rejected the cassation appeal of Vkontakte obligating the social network to pay a compensation of 550 thousand roubles - 50 thousand roubles for each of 11 audio records of singer Maxim.

“The Vkontakte social network does not take any measures to legalise pirated content, and on the contrary, creates all the conditions for its spread. This is why the site has to bear responsibility in accordance with the court decision,” Agronov believes. According to Deputy Director General for Legal Affairs and External Relations of S.B.A. / Gala Records Olga Kim, the online resource “should be responsible for copyright infringement, despite all the attempts of the social network to shift the responsibility for the distribution of content to ordinary users.”

The bill aimed at combating piracy, worked out by the RF Ministry of Culture, may be submitted to the State Duma lower house of parliament in the coming weeks. It suggests that responsibility for hosting illegal content on Internet sites should be borne by the owners of the sites, as well as by the users who spread this information.