Belarus legalises pirated content from ‘unfriendly countries’ and plans to collect royalties
Remuneration for pirated content to be paid directly to government | Rights owners have a limited period of time to recoup payments owed.
Russia’s military ally Belarus has unveiled a new law legalising access to pirated content originating from countries that it deems to be unfriendly.
The law, signed by the country’s leader Alexander Lukashenko, removes the need to seek authorisation from rights owners based in those countries, in a move first reported by copyright blog Torrent Freak.
The law has come into force and will remain in place until December 31, 2024.
International sanctions
Several countries, including the US, UK and the EU first imposed sanctions against Belarus following allegations of fraud surrounding the country’s 2020 elections.
Lukashenko’s support for the widely condemned Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted the delivery of further sanctions against Belarus, while companies including Intel, Airbnb and Amazon have all ceased operating in the country.
The country’s House of Representatives (lower house) adapted the law on December 20, 2022, followed by the Council of the Republic (upper house) a day later, and Lukashenko signed its provisions into law on January 3 this year.
The law entitled, ‘On the limitation of exclusive rights to objects of intellectual property’, primarily affects those who own the rights to computer programs and audiovisual works, including movies, music, and TV shows.
It states that if such rights owners are based in countries “committing unfriendly actions” against Belarus, “which forbade or did not give consent” for IP to be used in Belarus, their exclusive rights will be removed.
Government to collect royalty payments
Additionally, the lower house of the Belarusian parliament will be able to determine the market price of this pirated content.
Meanwhile, rights owners from ‘friendly countries’ will only lose their rights in the event of “critical shortages” of certain goods in the domestic market.
Belarus has taken this action despite being a signatory to international IP treaties that oppose such forms of state-authorised piracy.
According to the new law, payment for the use of unlicensed content must be paid directly to the country’s National Patent Authority.
Rights owners will then have three years to claim the payments, and if they fail to do so, the money will pass to the Belarussian government.
“After three years, the remuneration not demanded by the right holder or the organisation for the collective management of property rights will be transferred by the patent authority to the republican budget within three months,” the law states.
Parallel imports
If they do succeed in extracting payments, rights owners must reimburse the patent authority for management and accounting expenses incurred by holding the payments.
The law has also paved the way for the creation of unlicensed “parallel imports” to “create conditions for increasing the internal stability of the economy” and prevent or reduce a “critical shortage in the domestic market of food and other products”.
If these parallel imports are also subject to IP rights owned by foreign rights owners in unfriendly countries, the vendors won’t be compelled to seek authorisation before releasing their products.
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