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Online cinemas don’t want share with MinCult online box office figures

Recently the Russian ministry of culture has proposed to oblige online cinemas to share statistics showing how many times the movie has been streamed. This proposal could benefit right holders as they would know how for sure how many royalties they should receive. But this idea is not welcomed by online cinemas themselves. They have express their concerns in the letter to the deputy of minister of culture.

Accordign to the letter the online cinemas don’t feel urgent necessity to introduce new form of state’s control over the online box office. Online cinemas also don’t want to bear costs and expenditures linked to accumulation and processing of data on streames of movies and interaction with state accounting system containing all data from online cinemas. Online cinemas proposed to oblige the right holders to provide data required as they already receive information from online cinemas.

The letter also states that such proposal impairs the interests of Russian companies because it does not cover major companies like YouTube, Google and social networks. Therefore the MinCult has been proposed to drop its initial idea and to launch new consultaions with online cinemas, right holders, search engines, foreign market players and other stakeholders in order to “find eligible model”. But the thing is the intention to know online box office originates from Russian prime minister. The minister of culture only executes prime-minister’s order.

The ministry of culture also proposed to implement so called “institute” online dissemination licensing, i.e. to issue licence for online distribution of movie. It could mean that without mincult’s licence the online distribution of movie could be forbidden. The letter states the prime-minister’s initiative unsatisfactorily implemented. The necessity to draft relevant legal instrument is not justifiable enough, the proposed legal mechanism is not worked out and unrealistic in its implementation and contains many flaws and risks for fair market players the letter reads.

The right holders welcome the MinCult’s proposal. Their plea has been encouraged by prime-minister. The Russian ministry of communication has already worked out this idea. The ministry believes the single and common measuring instrument would ensure the transparency in movie industry and very important for its development, stated the deputy of the minister of communication.

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