Deputies introduced a bill to block “mirrors” of pirated sites
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It is proposed to transfer the authority to block “mirrors” of pirated sites from the Ministry of Digital Development, which conducts the examination, directly to Roskomnadzor. The authors of the initiative explain that this will shorten the process of restricting access to the resource to two days. In addition, we are talking about obliging all search engines to remove links. Currently, only systems that publish advertisements for Russian users should do this. Lawyers note that the system for restricting access to websites in the Russian Federation is already opaque and a legitimate portal can be blocked due to the external resemblance of a domain to an illegal resource. Meanwhile, Russia remains in third place in the world in terms of piracy.
Kommersant got acquainted with the draft amendments to Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection,” which regulates the dissemination and protection of information on the Internet. The bill was submitted to the State Duma on January 25 by a group of deputies led by the head of the information policy committee, Alexander Khinshtein.
The authors propose transferring to Roskomnadzor from the Ministry of Digital Development the authority to block “mirrors” (copies) of pirated sites and forward decisions on this to portal owners. In their opinion, this approach will reduce the process of restricting access to resources to two days.
We are also talking about obliging all search engines to remove information about “mirrors” from search results, the explanatory note says.
Now only search engines that distribute advertising on the RuNet should do this. In March 2022, Google turned off advertising in search results and on YouTube for users from Russia. The company made this decision after Roskomnadzor demanded that it stop showing advertisements that contain information about the fighting in Ukraine.
According to the current scheme, the process of blocking “mirrors” occurs in three stages.
- First, information about an illegal resource is sent to the Ministry of Digital Development, which carries out an examination within 24 hours.
- Then a copy of the ministry’s decision is sent to the owner of the pirate site and to Roskomnadzor.
- The service appeals to hosting providers, telecom operators and search engines, who, within 24 hours after the department’s order, must limit access to the “mirror” and stop publishing data about it on the Internet.
Kommersant sent a request to the Ministry of Digital Development.
Alexander Khinshtein did not specify how, in the current conditions, it is possible to oblige foreign search engines to comply with Russian laws.
“We are introducing liability, and then we will think about measures for non-compliance,” the deputy told Kommersant.
The law on blocking pirate “mirrors” was adopted by the State Duma in 2017: it simplified the procedure for limiting access to illegal resources. Now blocking can be initiated by both copyright holders and authorities without going to court. In total, due to the failure to remove information disseminated in violation of copyright or related rights, Roskomnadzor limited access to 114 thousand materials in 2022, and to 228 thousand materials in 2023, the service told Kommersant. Resource owners independently deleted 371,340 pieces of content with such information in 2022, and 856 thousand resources in 2023, Roskomnadzor added. At the same time, according to MUSO (monitoring piracy) and the consulting company Kearney for 2023, Russia is in third place in the world in consuming pirated video content.
The fight against pirated content, including “mirrors,” has been going on for many years, notes Inna Tverezovskaya, head of the freedom of information and reputation practice at DRC. Therefore, explains Roman Lukyanov, managing partner of Semenov & Pevzner, “a modern pirate is already well aware of the legal risks of his activities; backup infrastructure, including domains, is prepared in advance in case of blocking.” “Moving from one domain to another is a very fast process,” the expert emphasizes. He admits that the faster the blocking is implemented, the more effective it will be, and search engines themselves are quite interested in fighting pirates: “Conditional Google today removes links to stolen content from Russian copyright holders even without additional official procedures and the involvement of government agencies.”
But at the official level in the Russian Federation, “the system for blocking mirrors is not structured transparently,” says Ekaterina Abashina, lawyer for the Moscow CCA DBA and Partners: “The decision is made by the Ministry of Digital Development with the help of anonymous experts who evaluate sites according to several criteria. To recognize a site as a copy of another resource, even one criterion, for example the consonance of domains, is sufficient.” The expert emphasizes that it is “in practice impossible” to reverse the ministry’s decision.
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