Russia: Signed Memorandum of Cooperation to combat internet piracy

The Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation concerning the protection of copyright in the era of digital technologies with twelve media and internet Russian companies (Channel One, VGTRK, STS Media, Gazprom-Media Holding, National Media Group, Association of Film and Television Producers, Association for the Promotion of the Circulation of Legal Content on the Internet, Yandex, Mail.Ru, Rambler Internet Holding, Ruform and Kinopoisk). The Memorandum aims to combat internet piracy by promoting industry self-regulation. The Memorandum establishes a database maintained by Roskomnadzor that will collect the links to sites containing content that violates intellectual property rights. Within six hours, unlawful URLs have to be removed from search results by search platforms, and unlawful videos have to be removed by hosting platforms. The memorandum will be valid until 1 September 2019.