The arbitration court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region refused to satisfy the claims of record companies Warner Music and Universal Music to a social network “Vkontakte”. Write about this “Vedomosti”.
According to the publication, the court did not satisfy the financial requirements of labels for a total sum about 50 million roubles, but ordered Vkontakte to create a system that prevents users to upload pirated content. Previously, company representatives have stated that they are working in this direction and actively cooperate with copyright holders.
In the spring of 2014 three of the majors — Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music has filed lawsuits against Vkontakte, demanding to remove from the site and to prevent re-loading of tracks nine performers — Charlie XCX, Natalia Gordienko, the Novel Kanga, Sergey Lazarev, Lianne La Havas, Lumiere, Sak Noel, Yulia Parshuta and Rumer. In July 2015 litigation came out Sony Music — with the company agreed on the legalization of music and signed the settlement agreement.
According to sources, UMA may sign a similar agreement with Warner and Universal, but the parties cannot agree on a price and format of cooperation.
Currently with “Vkontakte” are suing two more of the music owner — the company “Nikitin Media digital Content”, which requires to delete 10 tracks of Grigory Leps, and the label “Union” that protects the interests of groups “Aria” and “Hands up.” In both cases the decision has already lost one process and now he will appeal the verdicts.
In 2012 sound recording company “Gala records”, which currently belongs to Warner Music Russia, has won two claims to “Vkontakte” and has made the payment of 760 000 rubles per song, the singer Makem. Then the court decided that the social network is not responsible for downloaded files, but not responded promptly to the complaint of the label.
Currently in Russia there is an extended version of “anti-piracy” law, which allows copyright owners to seek the blocking of pirate websites. However, while the court claims registers only for small sites — Roskomnadzor informally recommended that copyright holders “do not touch” large sites, as they need to be legit on your own.
