The number of pirated resources with books, films and music is growing

The number of illegal resources with media content (books, films, music) in the first half of the year increased by 20% year-on-year, TelecomDaily calculated. Piracy is mainly growing in terms of Western films, not Russian ones, according to official online cinemas. Digital book services believe that the growth in their category was triggered by late adherence to the anti-piracy memorandum. At the same time, the authorities are looking for ways to return foreign content to legal platforms, but it has not yet been possible to agree on this.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the research data of the information and analytical agency TelecomDaily based on a survey of more than 10 thousand users of video services in the first half of the year. It follows from it that the number of pirated resources exploiting media content (films, TV series, books, music) increased by about 20% year-on-year in the first half of the year. The agency did not provide absolute figures. Earlier, TelecomDaily noted that citizens began to more actively use legal video services and pay for them (see Kommersant on August 9).

Market participants have different assessments of the development of the pirate market in the media segment. Thus, Kion (owned by MTS) notes that “the continued growth of pirated services remains one of the most pressing problems among streaming services.” Wink (a joint venture of Rostelecom and the National Media Group) does not note a significant increase in piracy in terms of Russian content: “Western rights holders, when they left Russian viewers without their content, provoked an increase in piracy.”

After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, many foreign partners refused to work with Russian publishers, film companies, promoters and musicians. This led to the fact that the number of requests to download applications with pirated content increased by 300–400% last year (see Kommersant on August 1). In September, Roskomnadzor reported that in total this year the service blocked and removed 1.3 million links to content that violated copyright and related rights. Roskomnadzor also agreed to include representatives of the book and music industry in the anti-piracy memorandum.

An anti-piracy memorandum was signed between copyright holders and search engines – Yandex, Mail.ru Group and Rambler on November 1, 2018. The agreement is intended to strengthen the fight of copyright holders against the spread of illegal content on the Internet. The document involves the creation of a register with pirated resources and obliges to remove links to these resources from search results out of court.

A Kommersant source in one of the digital services claims that while the book industry was waiting for inclusion in the memorandum, the number of pirated resources with e-books on the network increased: “Not all of them were blocked promptly, most had already managed to create so-called mirrors.” Thus, the interlocutor says, the number of communities on Telegram has also increased, where you can find digital copies of new books, the rights to which Russian publishing houses can no longer obtain. Book publishers themselves complain more about the problem of counterfeit goods on marketplaces. Thus, Alpina reported that this year they discovered about 20 sellers of counterfeit products: “This is due to insufficient control of the sites.”

The main goal of the memorandum – to complicate user access to sites with pirated content – is still being fulfilled, recalls Chill web cinema development director Zhan Prosyanov: “It has become more difficult for the user to find an illegally distributed film, TV series, book, music album. But no memorandum can completely destroy the market for pirated content.”

The situation is complicated by the fact that illegal content has begun to appear on official resources, says Kommersant’s interlocutor on the media market: “The same RuTube does not remove films and TV series of Western copyright holders from the resource.” RuTube previously clarified that until the hosting team is contacted by the copyright holder, they do not have the right to delete content uploaded by the user. At the same time, authorities are looking for legal ways to return foreign content to legal platforms. In the summer, they offered to license the content of Western copyright holders without their permission, but with the payment of remuneration (see Kommersant on July 4). However, market participants opposed the initiative, arguing that it would only strengthen the position of pirates.

Yulia Yurasova