Russian bill proposes mandatory removal of infringing search engine results
A new bill from the deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma proposes the widespread removal of copyright infringing content from search engine results.
Submitted on Tuesday, June 15, the bill builds upon a voluntary anti-piracy system available to select rightsholders, which was created following the submission of a memorandum calling on search engine operators to crack down on “illegally posted audiovisual works” in 2018.
After months of state-moderated negotiations between prominent Russian rights holders and internet companies, three of Russia’s largest search engines Yandex, Mail.Ru and Rambler signed the memorandum, alongside several major media companies including Gazprom-Media, Channel One Russia and the National Media Group.
At the heart of the system is a database for rightsholders to upload potentially infringing content and flag it for removal from search engines within six hours.
“Copyright holders appreciated the effectiveness of such a mechanism for the protection of rights...its implementation has led to an increase in the audience of legal Internet services,” the bill’s author Sergey Boyarskiy, deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma, said.
As well as opening up the system to more users, the bill requires search engine operators to connect to the system by law.
The draft bill, translated from Russian, reads: “Implementation of the provisions provided for by the draft federal law, will allow us... to consolidate on the legislative level a new mechanism for the protection of copyright and related rights.
“It will make the system accessible to a wider circle of copyright holders, provide them with equal conditions for access to the protection of their rights, as well as to extend the obligation to stop issuing links to those illegally posted on the Internet works for all operators operating in the Russian Federation search engines.”
According to TorrentFreak, the new law, if passed, will come into effect on December 1, 2021.
The full bill proposal can be found in Russian here.
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