A bill submitted to the Russian parliament would allow the copying and distribution of Western movies, TV shows and other content without permission from rights holders.
In a letter to the Russian parliament, the broadcasters and their legal services say that directing Russians to pirate sites will harm rights holders abroad and at home.
As a country that regularly claims to be at war with the United States, Russian lawmakers seem to have plenty of time to debate how the country's citizens will continue to be entertained with mostly US content.
The bill introduced in April seeks to amend the provisions of Federal Law No. 46-FZ of March 8, 2022.
Online Piracy: The story of piracy before the World Wide Web
Regarding intellectual property, the law states that the use of content that is legally distributed in any other country in the world is not a violation of exclusive rights, adding that the import of goods can be done without permission from the rights holder.
When Western companies decided to stop doing business with Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, Russia argued that this amounted to an abuse of their power. So as a result, Russia no longer feels bound by licensing restrictions and will source the same content from elsewhere whenever required.
The bill introduced in April seeks major amendments to Law no. 46-FZ that will allow Western content with exclusive foreign rights to be translated, reproduced/copied and distributed publicly without the permission required by the rights holders.
