Arbitration court of St.-Petersburg and Leningrad region has satisfied the claim of the music Studio “the Union” the social network “Vkontakte” by requiring her to remove permanently the tracks, rights to which the Complainant has, according to “Vedomosti”. It was the first defeat of the social network in the courts with right holders in 2012.
The social network also will pay the Studio a compensation of 600 000 rubles, said the President of the nonprofit partnership “Association of owners” and senior partner of the law firm “Rollers and partners” Pavel Katkov, who was representing the plaintiff in court.
The main requirement of the Studio “Union” – delete from “Vkontakte” musical composition group “Aria”, “Korn”, “Hands up” and Lubov Uspenskaya. Also, the plaintiff demanded that Vkontakte has to pay him compensation in 4,575 million rubles, the Court sided with the rights holder, but reduced the amount of the payments is almost 8 times.
“The court ordered “Vkontakte” to remove pirated content on an ongoing basis, not once. The main thing is to work with the content, the final goal is to create a legal framework for business relations between the court and the copyright holder,” said Katkov, adding that “this is the first such case from Russian music.”
Dispute “Union” and “Vkontakte” runs from 2013 — then the Arbitration of St. Petersburg and Leningrad region has refused to the copyright holder in a lawsuit, calling the social network “information intermediary”, which is not responsible for the files users. In 2015, the copyright court sent the case back for retrial.
In 2012, a record company “Gala records”, which is currently included in Warner Music Russia, won two claims to “Vkontakte” and has made payment in 760 000 rubles for the use of the songs of the singer Maksim. Then the court decided that the social network is not liable for downloaded files, but not responded promptly to the complaints of the label.
Currently in Russia there is an extended version of “anti-piracy” law, which allows copyright holders to achieve lock of pirate websites. However, while the court registers only claims to small sites Roskomnadzor informally recommended that rights holders “do not touch” major sites, as they need to be legit on your own.
