“VKontakte” was removed pirated copies of songs for the distribution of which the claim to the social network filed the copyright holders. But lawyers majors argue that lawsuits will not be revoked and Internet companies may have to pay huge compensation.
A hearing on the joint lawsuit from three major studios — Warner Music UK Limited, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music — social network “Vkontakte” will be held on may 25, according to RBC. Judging by the lawsuits filed in April 2014, the Arbitration court of St.-Petersburg and Leningrad region, the right holders have accused the social network in the spread of pirated content. They require monetary compensation in the amount of 51.6 million rubles, and delete specific records, as well as the introduction of technology “digital fingerprint” — to cut off new copies of these songs in the future. This technology allows us to automatically detect that a new file is uploaded by a user that is a copy of the particular content.
Shortly before trial, on may 15, the General Director of “Vkontakte” Boris Dobrodeyev said that the mechanism of recognition of video content is still in development. However, in the search results the social network no longer shows the tracks listed in the joint lawsuit majors (38 items).
“All disputed these tracks right holders from the social network removed at their request,” said the press Secretary of “Vkontakte” Giorgi Lubushkin. He said that recognition technology, which is now being tested in the video, is already working on the recordings. Deleted tracks, lobuškina, this is the first result of “digital fingerprint”.
Rights holders complained in court to redistribute the tracks artists Rumer, Charli XCX, Lianne La Havas (Warner Music UK Limited), Roma Kanga and Natalia Gordienko (Universal Music), Sak Noel, Sergey Lazarev, Julia Parshuta and Lumiere (Sony Music Entertainment).
The company will not abandon its claims to monetary compensation and with a high probability it will end up in satisfaction of the claims of the plaintiffs in full, said the lawyer of Board “Trunov, Aivar and partners” Sarkis Darbinyan. The outcome of the case, in his opinion, depends on the appetite of the copyright holders: “Vkontakte” is the “fat cat”, from which to get money, the company with clear jurisdiction and open data on income and not a torrent tracker with registration in the Republic of Tonga”. By practice Darbinyan noticed that, going to court, copyright owners often expect not to delete information, and money.
Since may 1, Vkontakte exposed to much more dangerous risk: according to the new version of the anti-piracy law, any website can wait “eternal lock” for piracy. This can happen if the Moscow city court has twice recognized the resource of the offender at the suit of one and the same owner for the same content. This site will remain in the register of offenders assigned to Roskomnadzor. To cancel lock website a higher court.
