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Russia's War on Piracy/Malicious Software
tmk writes "Russian minister Leonid Reiman has announced new legislation to fight software piracy. According to official information the share of pirated software in the Russian Federation decreased in the last years from 90 to 60 percent. Reiman dismissed as a myth the impression that many viruses originate in his country: 'Viruses are written all over the world. Russia is waging a consistent and successful war on malicious software.' Reiman calls for an international organization to fight Internet crime. Last year Russia agreed to take down Allofmp3 after the United States intervened."
Russia agreed to shut down Allofmp3
"The government will be expected to begin complying by June 1, 2007."
They only agreed to it is so they could get into the WTO.
We'll see how strong their resolve is & how quickly Allofmp3 returns.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Uh... you've never been to Russia, have you?
Walk to the subway station, and there are about 5 vendors who will happily sell you pirated version of any music CD, most DVDs, and almost any software for $5.
While there are plenty of people who download software in the US, you'll have a hard time finding that sort of rampant piracy in the US.
In fact, in Russia, I only remember one store where I could buy non-pirated CDs. The piracy isn't even the same order of magnitude.
Regarding intellectual property, the Soviet Russia joke is (unfortunately) more accurate when reversed :
e.g. : In Soviet Russia, you own your software, in America your software owns you.
First of all, 'thy' is improperly used.
Second, you've got the word 'but' and 'pirates' MUCH too close to each other for my liking.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I am system administrator in a large nuclear physics institute in Moscow, which is by no mere coincidence a vital part of the Russian internet backbone. Since my day one I've been advocating Linux and free software, and here's the fruit: already about 10% of the institute's workers, including the director himself, use various distributions of Linux [mostly Ubuntu/Debian, Mandriva and Red Hat]. Besides, I'm currently engaged in talks with Sun regarding our migration to Sun Ray, which will run on a customized Debian system.
I believe that if the result will look as I expect it to, the university [it's the largest university in Russia and AFAIK Europe] which we are a significant part of might break off Microsoft crap in toto, although this statement can be considered a pure speculation at this moment.
Why else would a country enact laws against the interests of both country's population and its future economic power? I can see limited term copyright laws being beneficial in Russia, but only with exemptions for income levels and educational use. How does anyone benefit from a kid being computer illiterate because his parents one year salary still can not buy Vista, Office and Photoshop? If one day oil cartel countries force US women to wear burkas, you will know how that feels. Stop mucking with democratically chosen laws of sovereign nations.
Walk to the subway station, and there are about 5 vendors who will happily sell you pirated version of any music CD, most DVDs, and almost any software for $5.
I actually put that to the test last time I was in Moscow. Was in one of the high end shopping districts near Red Square and walked up to one of the multitudes of CD street vendors. Asked her if she had Borat (which had been released to theaters only a couple of weeks before, and is actually banned in Russia).
Yup, had it. Just under the table. Commanded a premium price though, I seem to remember it was around 300 rubles (about $10).
Worst...sig...ever!
The US is just defending their interests abroad. They are the largest exporter of copyrighted material in the world, and large-scale copyright infringement abroad can have an effect on American jobs.
By that logic, people who use the GPL are scum, since it is copyright law that prevents non-GPL derivatives.
We already embrace draconian copyright law and we already monitor all transmissions (it's called echelon or whatever they're calling it these days).
And for people who are going to say "hey, the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/US Government are only protecting our interests abroad!"... um... no. They are only protecting corporate interests abroad and doing so by manipulating and demanding how other nations will behave.
This is a case of American corporations not liking the laws other nations have within their own borders. The reason we want to change their laws and force them to abide by our broken copyright systems is the same reason we want them to become democracies and the same reason that we allow corporations to do business in countries that are a risk to our nation by threat of military actions, spying and have terribly humanitarian records. That reason being that corporations have saturated existing markets. Everyone who is going to by a Justin Timberlake CD in America, Austrlia and the United Kingdom already has done so. To continue expanding their corporations, they need to expand into new markets.
Helping bring other countries into competition with us at the expense of our own nation and citizens will eventually level them off to a point where they can all afford to buy our CDs and DVDs and videogames, as long as their legal systems and copyright systems (which we will force them to devise and comply with to our liking). Meanwhile, the average person in America and the UK can have their lifestyles seriously reduced in quality before they will no longer be capable or willing to buy content from these corporations.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Basically, American perception that the Russian gov't is shutting down allofmp3.com is a misperception, and one which I suspect the Russians are happy not to correct. Perhaps they'll get around to changing the law, but remember that allofmp3.com pays a cut to some Russian licensing agency -- not sure where that money goes, but wouldn't surprise me if money is finding its way into gov't coffers (or politicians' pockets?)
Loose lips lose spit.