, US trade representative (USTR) has once again included Russia on the list of countries that actively violated the rights of intellectual property. The first place in the so-called “list 301” Russia was, along with Algeria, Argentina, China, India, Indonesia, Ukraine, Thailand, Vietnam, Venezuela and Chile. The main purpose of the “301 List” is forcing other States to comply with international legislation in the field of copyright protection.
By joining the world trade organization (WTO), Russia undertook to protect the rights of authors and rights holders, but online piracy remains a serious problem in the country. Although the lock of the largest torrent tracker Rutracker.org in Russia still has a lot of other sites with illegal content, access to which is how the inhabitants of the Russian Federation and other countries.
USTR has included in the list of social network “Vkontakte”, calling it the largest distributor of pirated music, movies and TV series. The social network removes pirated content at the request of owners, the authors of the document. But this is not enough to fight piracy, they say. In a social network “Schoolmates” also has the service of unlicensed music.
We will remind, the company “Vkontakte” had earlier asked the trade representation of States not to include it in the “list of 301”. The social network appears in this list since 2012. In his letter, sent to the address of the USTR, the head of the social network Dmitry Sergeyev said that “Vkontakte” does not have the technical ability to premoderate downloadable content, and users accepting the terms of use, you agree not to upload unlicensed content.
Thus, according to the head of “Vkontakte”, the company cannot be held responsible for the actions of users and third-party developers who create applications to access the content of the social network. However, rights holders can complain to administrators, and pirated content will be removed.
The presence in the “list of 301” may adversely affect the business of its members. For example, many international companies have restrictions on working with the companies on this list told earlier the employees of the Western majors.
Earlier in the list and repeatedly got the social network “Odnoklassniki”. However, this year, the trade representative has not made the second most popular in Russia social network to the list of pirates.
“Special 301 report” is issued the Trade mission of the USA every year since 1989. In the report, USTR identifies those countries which, in the US, do not provide “adequate and effective” protection of intellectual property rights — including patents, trademarks and copyrights of U.S. companies.
