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Yandex agreed to de-index URLs to illegal content without court order

At the meeting with right holders, internet companies, state authorities, like Roskomnadzor, and other stakeholders, Yandex agreed to sign anti-piracy memorandum, but under condition – this memorandum is to be signed by Mail.ru. This memorandum provides creation of new entity – Association of internet services, which would be responsible for creation, development and maintaining of “piracy register” (register of web-sites with illegal content).

The major Russian internet company Yandex has expressed its consent to sign document, but it does not mean that the company has signed it. There still remain some questions the parties of memorandum negotiate. For example the time limits for de-indexing of URLs to illegal content from search. Yandex believes it shouldn’t bear responsibility for internet piracy alone. The company has underlined – it is also right holder and has huge interest in legal internet.

Yandex believes the memo should be signed also by Google and Mail.ru, but right holders claim they already have effective interaction mechanism with these two companies for de-indexing of illegal content and it is not so necessary to make them sign this document. It is supposed that the memo would be in force till September 2019 and can be prolonged at the consent of its signatories.

The board of Association of internet services would include administrators of search engines, executives from social networks and video-hosting platforms. The first “the register of pirates” would be maintained by the Association and then, after the adoption of new anti-piracy law, this registry would be handed over to Roskomnadzor. The parties of memo have also reached common consent in relation to documents the right holder must provide in order to prove its status as right holder.

Initially Yandex required providing the court order in order to de-index URLs to illegal content. But finally internet company agreed to exclude this condition from memo and currently the document provides its own mechanism of rights verification. This mechanism provides 14 days for verification, if the parties fail to verify the status of claimant, the court has authority to make clear who is who and who is right.

The memo also provides Yandex with right to terminate it. It can be the case when Yadnex comply with memo provisions but someone from right holder files a lawsuit against Yandex seeking preliminary measure. What concerns the time frames for de-indexing, the Yandex requires six hours and promises to de-index within three hours (three hours in reserve), but right holders require de-indexing within one hour and 20 minutes in the case of live streaming.