The Association of Internet Publishers (webpublishers.ru) sent a letter to the State Duma outline the complicated situation that has arisen with regard to authors’ rights in Russia. Current legislation creates problems for everyone, from the Ministry of Culture and Presidential Administration to libraries and new media, they wrote.
The authors of the letter point to the legislative practice of “free license” or “free content”, which functions in 52 other countries throughout the world. This license allows for free distribution of works related to culture or mass communication. The introduction concept of free content should not be difficult: it simply requires amendments to several articles of Part IV of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the association wrote, suggesting a step-by-step procedure for making works of literature and art more accessible to ordinary people.
“It is necessary to organize a fair and sequential buyout of the rights to all Russian-language literature that is included in the public school education program created during the Soviet era, the rights to which have yet to become public domain, and there are substantial grounds for this (as during the Soviet period authors’ rights were protected by a very different set of norms and regulations),” the letter states.
In the same manner, films created during the Soviet period with state support should also be bought up. “Right now we are faced with the paradoxical situation in many world classics, even those created in the 1940s-1950s are available legally for free, while classic Soviet films starting from the late 1930s, which long ago became a part of our cultural heritage, remain available exclusively on commercial conditions,” says the association’s president Ivan Zasursky.
The urgency of the situation is stressed by those involved in the implementation of book-reader library systems. Even if the state will have adequate resources to support the technical aspects of this process, the issue of author’s rights remains critical. “While certain individual corporations (such as Google Books) and noncommercial organizations (Internet Archive and the Hathi Foundation) provide free access to millions of books, the lack of this capacity among our libraries is comparable to their shutting down, and it clearly points toward the loss of Russia’s cultural heritage, prospects and opportunities for innovative development,” the letter states. Libraries should be allowed to offer digital versions of books just as they provide hardcopies to citizens free of charge, the association argues.
The heads of the largest media holdings in Russia – Nikita Mikhalkov, Valery Ganichev, Karen Shakhnazarov, Konstantin Ernst and Vsevolod Bogdaov – were quick to respond to the association’s letter. They wrote to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, protesting against attempts to force the transfer to public domain all authors’ works created in the USSR and Russia with state support: “Current Russian copyright legislation is based on principles recognized in the laws of all developed countries of the world, in particular, the unacceptability of using works and other objects of intellectual property without the permission of the rightsholders. The implementation of the suggests of the [association’s] letter will have destructive effects in science, culture, cinematography, television and other socially significant spheres, and in essence undo the enormous work achieved by the leadership of the country in terms of developing a modern legislative foundation in the sphere of copyright and intellectual property. The actual result of these suggested measures could be the unlimited commercial use of the achievements of other’s intellectual work.”
On the very next day following the letter to the president, the Cinematographers Union joined with the Russian Copyright Society to form the Russian Union of Rightholders, which intends to levy copyright royalties from producers and importers of blank audio-video recording media.
Prior to launching its collection of this “tax”, the new organization will have to receive accreditation from the state Cultural Preservation Service, the process for which will only become apparent after the government adopts a resolution outlining the mechanisms and procedures for collecting these funds.
