Despite the fact that many stakeholders from entertainment industry claim the current Russian copyright law in its part providing the measures against internet piracy is ineffective, the Roskomnadzor – internet watchdog and “Russian Hadopi” – reports how many pirate web-sites it has blocked and how many illegal copies of content have been deleted.
At the meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin the chief of Russian Hadopi claimed during the last three years all major pirate platforms, disseminating illegal content in Russian segment of internet have been blocked in Russia. A few years ago the Russian internet was “absolutely pirate bay” where the illegal copies of movies appeared promptly after release, Roskomnador’s CEO said. “Now situation is different – 6 thousand resources have been blocked and 11 thousands web-sites have deleted illegal copies of movies”, – he reported.
Roskomnadzor’s CEO intends to continue to work with rightholders and promised to “clear out the internet”. He believes the legal online cinemas have won from Roskomnadzor’s activity and received additional 60% revenues and more subscribers. He did not mentioned that legal online video platforms mostly provide videos for free with advertisement and their business models look like surviving hard times. Many internet users have adblock and watch TV for free on these legal platforms.
Right holders in Russia, regardless of type of content (music or video), does not consider the Russian internet as a means of monetization, some of them truly believes the internet is only opportunity to promotion and performing activity or litigation are the main means of copyright monetization.