A bill to limit foreign participation in audiovisual services 20% may force YouTube to leave Russia. About it reports “Kommersant”, who turned out to be a copy of the opinion of the Committee the right Mediacommunications Union (ISS).
The bill restricting the activities of online cinemas, 25 Nov introduced in the state Duma deputies Andrei Lugovoi and Samail by Saralieva. Among the members of the ISS, there are disputes about this bill. The document proposes to limit the share of foreign ownership in Russia working in audiovisual services, the daily audience exceeding 100,000 users. With the exception of services exclusively custom content.
“YouTube hosts both professional and user generated content, and methods for the separation of one from another there,” — explained one of the possible reasons for leaving the service of Russia, a source familiar with the discussion of the initiative.
In order to meet the requirements of the bill, the owner of YouTube, Google will have to create additional infrastructure, or to leave “to overseas sites, which will lead to a sharp increase in foreign exchange costs of all operators and deterioration in the quality of services,” added the newspaper.
In September 2016, the President of the ISS, Pavel Stepanov said that YouTube and social networks will not fall under the scope of the bill.
In the legal Committee of the ISS warned that the bill will also restrict competition, aimed at obtaining benefits for separate participants of the market and force users to go into the grey area of the Internet associated with the “uncontrolled spread of TOR and VPN”. This was after the introduction of the bill to the state Duma and warned the representatives of the system that sent the MPs requesting them not to allow early adoption of the amendments.
According to “Kommersant”, the amendments initiated “Gazprom-media” and “STS Media”. According to sources, they wrote against the American special online cinema Netflix, which in January 2016 began to work in Russia. Against this initiative are the “Beeline” and MTS who insist on a broad discussion of the document.
