Russian Software Piracy Crackdown Restricts Free Speech

reporter writes "According to a report recently filed by the Washington Post, the Kremlin has finally begun to crackdown on software piracy ... with a twist. The Russian state agency is targetting political enemies with claims of piracy, including independent news media, political parties, and private advocacy groups. In particular, 'the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, one of the last outposts of critical journalism in Russia, suspended publication of its regional edition in the southern city of Samara on Monday after prosecutors opened a criminal case against its editor, alleging that his publication used unlicensed software.'" This doesn't even take into account our recent discussion of the Kremlin's grip on internet access in that country.

Comments

Article is a flamebait.

[padonak]

At the risk of gaining a few more /. "freaks", I have to point out that this post is just on of the many recent submissions by reporter, most of which are simply anti-russian FUD.
He even expressed his desire to have a dedicated anti-russian section here.
While bashing a Cold War enemy is certainly fun, I don't see much "news for nerds" here. Keep /. politics focused on U.S., please.

Re:Article is a flamebait.

[padonak]

Wait, are you against FUD in general, or are you against FUD only when it applies to topics related to Russia? I'm against FUD in general. I've hit the "200 friends/foes" limit because of this.

The topic of the submission was "Russian Software Piracy Crackdown Restricts Free Speech". Every couple of weeks there are articles in russian press about police raids and confiscations of counterfeit CDs. I don't see any of these news here on /. But when the "free press" (which BTW is just as corrupt and self-involved as the ones they bash) is concerned, suddenly there's an article in WP and a helpful submission of our own "reporter".

If any one of them ever use their position as a pulpit to disagree with the Kremlin, then they too may get a knock at the door for software piracy. No, they'll first get a visit from the Tax Police, you don't know much about business there.

Russia is only selectively enforcing copyright laws against organizations that have spoken out against the government Does the name "allofmp3.com" ring a bell? There are dosens of music sites and online libraries (with OCRed books) that were closed in the last five years, yet WP and this reporter guy don't talk much about it.

That's not anti-Russian FUD, it's reality! Please explain to us why it is FUD. And saying "Because it is anti-Russian" doesn't cut it. I chose to call a selective representation of reality "FUD". Just like most of us call "Get The Facts" site reports about Windows vs. Linux performance. The results of the benchmarks were real, it's the test conditions that were ...hmmm... uneven.

Re:Anybody surprised?

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

but just a strategic retreat planned by the KGB (now GRU) that would help the Soviets catch up to the west technologically and economically after which they would return back to dictatorship and imperialism.

If this were true, which I doubt, then it came with a very high price - the permanent breakup of the USSR and the loss of 14 Soviet Republics (Republic no. 15 is Russia - there were 15 Republics in the USSR), some of which aren't interested at all in being vassals to Mother Russia - Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova. I get the impression that Armenia and Azerbaijan are somewhat indifferent to Russia and the 5 "Stan" countries are interested in Russia only in so far as they can get something (ie. money) out of it. Only Belarus remains loyal to Mother Russia and got paid back earlier in the year by Mother Russia telling it that it better pay up what it owed on natural gas and oil that came from Russia or there would be some, ahem, "unpleasantness".