Leading Russian media propose draft law to fight content stealing

Posted by Christie Silk on June 11, 2009 at 3:15 PM

Leading Russian news agencies and media outlets have come to an agreement concerning proposals for a draft law which would grant news reports the legal status of goods and allow for the imposition of fines for the illegal publishing of copyrighted material. The announcement was released today in a news release from the news agency RIA Novosti.

The Mass Communication Council at the Russian Communications Ministry met on Wednesday to discuss measures to protect intellectual property. Participants included RIA Novosti, Interfax, the Kommersant publishing house, Vedomosti and Gazeta.ru.

"The main goal of the proposed amendments to a number of laws is to turn news into goods which must be paid for," asserted RIA Novosti Editor-in-Chief, Svetlana Mironyuk.

According to Mironyuk, websites that are not registered media outlets, which are actively taking news content from professional sources, are in violation of copyright laws.

"Firstly, this is unscrupulous competition, and secondly, it steals readers from professional media and consequently cuts profits from advertising posted on their websites," Mironyuk said.

Mikhail Mikhailin, editor-in-chief of Gazeta.ru, said it was necessary to "set the rules of the game" on the online media market.

Those involved in the draft suggested that offenders attempting to publish copyright material without citing the copyright holder should pay fines ranging from 2,000 rubles ($65) to 20,000 rubles ($647). The level of the fine would depend on whether they are individuals or legal entities.

Alexander Zharov, a deputy communications minister declared that "copyright holders should be protected," and plagiarists be prosecuted. Zharov promised to promote the draft law once a coherent stand has been formulated by all online representatives.

These discussions in Russia are symptomatic of a global tension concerning the provision of online news. GoogleNews is perhaps one of the most famous news aggregator to have attracted controversy, with critics claiming that it 'steals' news content from its sources and benefits unfairly from its position as the leading search engine.

Source: RIA Novosti