Russia Wanted To Shut YouTube Down For Piracy

ge7 writes "A recently leaked confidential diplomatic cable reveals Russia's growing interest in shutting down copyright infringing websites. 'Russia's Deputy Minister of Economic Development said that not only do U.S. sites continue to offer pirated Russian movies, but that YouTube and Google should be shut down for not respecting local laws'. The U.S. government has previously attacked torrent and link sites hosted elsewhere in the world, extradited foreign nationals for piracy and provided training on how to shut down piracy websites. 'Voskresenskiy went on to state that, in his opinion, no country in the world is prepared to fight Internet piracy. He argued that all existing laws, including laws in the U.S., are antiquated and do not address new technological trends. As an example, [Voskresenskiy] stated that YouTube and Google (as YouTube's owner) should be shut down because they do not conform to current Russian IPR laws. He admitted that this was not feasible, but continued to emphasize that these entities need to follow local laws, even if the laws are outdated,' the cable adds."

Comments

Meanwhile in Russia...

[DurendalMac]

...there are an unholy amount of crooks cranking out malware, extortionware, and everything else under the sun for profit, not to mention PLENTY of people hosting and even selling pirated goods.

Clean up yer own shit before crying about the US, Vosk. You have one hell of a dirty house.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[ge7]

I think the main point here is that U.S. should clean up their own shit first. Like he said "that this was not feasible". U.S. has a long history of attacking Russia and other countries for copyright theft while ignoring that U.S. itself has the same problems. Russia here seems to understand that, U.S. doesn't.

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[Kenja]

Try going to said other countries and you'll see the problem. You cant even find legitimate copies of software or movies, and while movies may be one thing, software is another. For some reason I dont trust the $1 copy of Photo Shop to be free of malicious additions.

Cables = Commentary on Society, not Leaders

[JordanL]

It isn't malice that ruins the world, it is malfeasance. The leaders of the world are completely and utterly stuck in the paradigm that only the people they control are people, and then only so long as they control them. It has nothing to do with conspiracy or evil... these people honestly do not know how to govern correctly, because those who learn how to do that understand how our social systems would never let them do so, and thus never attempt to control government.

Humanity if very quickly approaching the point at which we will have to restructure not just our political systems, but our society and our economy as a species. I doubt we make it out of this century as anything other than a sad afterimage if we don't.

The fact that people do not believe such a thing is "realistic" only further highlights how bent on self-destruction humans are. We have collectively decided to let our non-cognitive processes guide our decision making, and then we created social structures to reinforce that process. Are people honestly surprised that we are burning out our energy reserves, that we have huge gaps in wealth, that we have enough food to feed everyone but don't do it, or that we constantly make decisions which provide no way to plan for the consequences of our choices?

That is the expected outcome of our society as it is right now, and it is not our leaders that are responsible, it is you and it is me and it is them. Species scale problems cannot be solved by or blamed on one group, one person, or one class. If they make the wrong decisions it is because you and me let them. If they try to make the right decisions but are stopped, that is also our fault.

But fault and blame solve no problems, provide no solutions, and give us no answers. So if you really, truly, desire to see change within our society, the most productive thing you can do to bring that about it so end your own hypocrisy and embody the wisdom that you feel you can explain to others. Once you understand what the solution is, you either start working on bringing it about, or you are part of the problem.

Sometimes I wish I'd been born in a different time... it seems that my generation, and those before me, have decided to subsist through our existence like a blind drunkard wandering through a dream. One day maybe. I hope. But right now, the things revealed by the cables on Wikileaks do not surprise me. If they surprise you, ask yourself if there was really any other possibility within our society for the things we now learn of. This is the society we all asked for, don't act surprised when you find out we got it.

Re:Cables = Commentary on Society, not Leaders

[JordanL]

I personally have my own ideas, but my ideas aren't really the point. I will explain them to you, so long as you understand there is virtually no chance that I am espousing truth... I may be closer to it than someone else, or than what we have now, but it is still only truth within the context of myself.

What you can do is embody the wisdom that you have. You go through life, and you learn what consequences choices have, and whether or not those choices are inherent or derived. That is, whether or not the consequences are because of the paradigm society is in, or because that consequence always arises from a particular choice.

Adultery has consequences that rely on both. There are inherent consequences: it is likely because of the structure of the human psyche that it will cause emotional harm to your partner. But it also has derived consequences: legal situations or cultural situations that arise because others within society find a behavior so abhorant that they want to provide additional consequence as punishment or deterrent.

As you learn these things going through life, many people make decisions in the moment. That is, decisions are made as part of a short term plan, and actions are taken as part of a long term plan. (A generalization, certainly.)

In that sense, what is easiest (and hardest) for most people to do is to embody their wisdom. When you were young, did you learn through consequence what it felt like to be shunned? Did you learn through consequence what it meant to be hated? Did you learn through consequence what it meant to love? For these things, once you understand through the experience of them what these consequences mean, it is your responsibility to decide in the future, ever time the choice is presented, if you want to encourage these consequences upon others.

The problems are much deeper within society than our political systems. Fixing our political systems directly will probably never work. Not until we fix our social systems to represent the sum of our wisdom instead of the sum of our desires. I personally do not believe that our social structures, political systems, economies, or even our friendships will be productive and directed toward an actual goal until people come to feel that it is truly in their best interest to help other people become better people.

It is not a moral deficiency necessarily. We as a society interact with each other as if we still need to dominate in order to subsist. This is no longer true. Our technology has saved us from that, we just haven't realized it yet. It's not about holding hands and singing Kum-by-yah, it's much simpler. It benefits you the most to be positive and productive in society, because it allows others to also be positive and productive, and when we all can be positive and productive, we will almost surely discover not through song or religion that "love" is the answer, but rather being selfless is the most selfish action you can take. That when you go far enough in either direction, they become the same, and achieve the same things.

We have not given our political leaders a system that they could do good with even if they wanted to. If we want to design a system that allows them to do good, it's my opinion that we first have to learn how to "be good" ourselves, and really learn how to practice it with each other.

It all sounds lofty, and crazy, and idealist. The fact that it sounds that way is... sad. But I don't think it will always be that way, and one day I believe that our choices will be to adopt these lofty, crazy, idealist concepts, or to self-destruct by our own hands.

I've already made my choice between the two, and as much as I can, I try to embody it. It's what I can do that has the most positive impact on the most people, and when society is ready, they won't need to be convinced. We'll simply be able to decide how to make things better.

Re:Cables = Commentary on Society, not Leaders

[JordanL]

This article was about two things, IMO:

1. The possible shutdown of YouTube because of IP laws.
2. The greater topic of the WikiLeaks cables that have been released.

I chose to talk about the second. I guess most of Slashdot agrees with you though, since my post was modded Offtopic.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Modern tech.

[ArsonSmith]

In Soviet Russia the US violates your copyrights.

I guess.

Re:The people's content.

[shutdown -p now]

There is a strong likelihood that anything that Russia would be complaining about is the intellectual property of a country that no longer exists.

They are probably trying to exert ownership and control of the works of the people created under during the Soviet regime.

Given that Russian Federation is officially a successor state of the USSR, recognized as such by UN, and taking over all rights and obligations (including e.g. external debt), why shouldn't it exert ownership and control of the works copyrighted under Soviet regime?

Re:thats funny

[h4rr4r]

The Tupolev was a copy, the Buran was not a total copy. It involved some industrial espionage, but we do that to. Buran was mostly a Russian design, they were also smart enough to cancel it after only one flight, unlike our shuttle program.

Need to follow local laws?

[Bert64]

If an internet site has to comply with the local laws in every jurisdiction from which it is accessible, you would have an utterly farcical situation...
Plenty of countries have laws which make it illegal to display content which is contrary to their regime, and some countries even require all content to be censored.

Imagine trying to comply with the laws of Myanmar or North Korea...

A website should only be beholden to the laws in the country from which it is hosted and/or operated.... And speaking of Russia, isn't that how allofmp3 worked? Blatantly ignoring US laws, but complying with Russian laws.

Re:Modern tech.

[interkin3tic]

In soviet Russia, you don't watch tube...

Re:Modern tech.

[SlashV]

In Soviet Russia copyright violates you!!! tube...

To summary's author: "Whooooosh!".

[Pi1grim]

Summary is all wrong, for once government official said something, that made sence: "It is stupid and impossible to try and get the internet in compliance with outdated laws, that were creating when the tech available to us was barely imaginable." Oh, and it totally made sence pointing out that US is attempting to bring internet to compliance with US laws is retarded, as every country has it's laws, and, for example google and youtube are in violation of Russia's laws.