Russian Minister Said YouTube And Google Should Be Shut Down For Violating IP Laws
Russian Minister Said YouTube And Google Should Be Shut Down For Violating IP Laws
Posted 09/06/2011 at 10:53am
| by Brad Chacos
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To file-swapping pirates, the terms “free download” and “Shady Russian warez sites” are almost interchangeable – and the US government knows it. Washington’s exerted a lot of pressure on Moscow in an effort to shut down numerous sites (most notably allofmp3.com) that infringed on the copyrights of US citizens and companies. But hold your horses! At least one Russian minister thinks top US sites like YouTube (and Google, YouTube’s parent company) regularly violate Russian intellectual property laws, too.
TorrentFreak found the claim buried deep inside the US diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks recently released. A confidential cable dated November 13, 2009, says that American embassy officials met with Ministry of Economic Development Deputy Minister Stanislav Voskresenskiy to pow-wow about an upcoming IP meeting in Washington. After bragging about Russia’s gains against in the IP enforcement world, Voskresenskiy painted a bleak picture regarding the world’s ability to combat those dastardly pirates.
“Voskresenskiy went on to state that, in his opinion, no country in the world is prepared to fight Internet piracy. He argued that all existing laws, including laws in the U.S., are antiquated and do not address new technological trends,” the cable reports.
“As an example, (Voskresenskiy) stated that YouTube and Google (as YouTube’s owner) should be shut down because they do not conform to current Russian IPR laws. He admitted that this was not feasible, but continued to emphasize that these entities need to follow local laws, even if the laws are outdated.”
It’s been a couple of years since Voskresenskiy made the claims, and both YouTube and Google are (obviously) still around, both in the US and Russia. But what do you think? Is his claim valid? Are US sites like YouTube just as damaging as the Russian warez sites sitting on the darker edges of the Web?
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mothrpe
September 07, 2011 at 8:18am
Russia is insanely corrupt, but in my opinion he's right, you can post anything you want on youtube, copyrighted or not and they don't get in any trouble. Yes they take it down but formal requests have to be made. You can put up anything you want, they've even had videos of rape on youtube for months, its a bit crazy. Its bullshit to me that youtube gets a free pass but other forms don't.
I don't see what the difference between youtube hosting copyrighted material or warez site hosting it is.
TerribleToaster
September 07, 2011 at 8:34am
You actually said the difference. Youtube actively tries to remove infringing content, warez sites don't. If they did, there won't be a problem.
BadCommand
September 06, 2011 at 4:59pm
I believe what they were doing was pulling a cat in a hat out of their ass to try and divert attention from Russia's blatant disregard for IP.
I would agree that, in Voskresenskiy's blatant smoke screen attempt, he did hit the nail on the head for the need for IP laws to be changed. My main problem with the laws is that there will always be "fringe" content- just interesting enough that I'll look at it if it's free, but not at all interesting enough that I'd ever pay for it. Most content lies in the this area and trying to protect obscures the reality of the situation.
It's a bit like being in a bar and hearing a band that you think is pretty good. Would you ever buy their album or go to a concert featuring that band- probably not, but they filled that "free" time pretty well.
80-90% of content (if not more) falls into the better-than-nothing, but not-worth-a-dime category, but unfortunately producers see it otherwise.
aarcane
September 06, 2011 at 11:45am
Should we in the US follow all of islamic law? women walking around covered head to toe, unable to be escorted without a man? More to the point, should youtube be allowed to show videos of people dancing? it's against the law some places, but not in most.. You decide.
somethingelse
September 06, 2011 at 2:08pm
Youtube has a lot of full, unedited, foreign content. My son is watching russian cartoons on youtube all the time. It's the equivelant of watching full Simpsons and Family Guy episodes.
Anyway, if youtube took down all of my son's russian cartoons, we'd find another way to watch them for free :)
Nimrod
September 06, 2011 at 8:48pm
People like you make my sympathies with the RIAA and the Soviet Union. Its dung bags like you who inspired people like Hitler.
DLing cartoons is understandable, but being a massive douch bag about it like you is why the Russians and RIAA will ALWAYS get away with doing what they do. Because theres always some one like you stupid enough to legitimize lawsuits or an internet kill switch.
If youtube was shutdown because of idiots like you people like my self and other legitimate contributors would have NO recourse of argument. It would be totally valid to shut down the service because morons are viewing and sharing existing copy protected material.
Also, this comments form is utter crap.
TerribleToaster
September 07, 2011 at 6:09am
Two quick points.
There is no Soviet Union nor has their been one for quite some time.
There were, in fact, no internet pirates when Hitler was around.
Though if there were, I too, am sure they'd all be Jews.
TerribleToaster
September 06, 2011 at 11:03am
Gootube makes a pretty active effort to conform to IP laws and have met with mild success. Them shady Russian sites don't give a damn about IP laws.
That's the difference.
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