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."

Comments

Re:Allofmp3

[bockelboy]

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.

Re:obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Eye witness report.

[rumith]

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.

Re:Allofmp3

[drix]

Uh... you've never been to Russia, have you?

Actually, I am from Russia. Rarely has the entire essence of what this site stands for been summed up in so few lines.