Gevorkyan v. Moshkov
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n copyright law to the online services.
Background
Maksim MoshkowMaksim Moshkow
Maksím Eugénievich Moshków is a public figure of the Russian Internet segment, the Runet.He graduated from Moscow State University Department of Mechanics and Mathematics. Since 1991 he has been an employee of the Scientific Research Institute of System Development, where he among other duties is...
is the owner of the website Lib.ru
Lib.ru
Lib.ru, also known as Maksim Moshkow's Library is the oldest electronic library in the Russian Internet segment.Founded and supported by Maksim Moshkow, it receives contributions mainly from users who send texts they scanned and processed...
also known as the Moshkov library created in 1994. The site is considered to be one of the oldest and the best Russian digital libraries
Digital library
A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...
. The site is free and supported by advertisements and private donations. The project started as a Bulletin board system
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
and kept the bulletin board approach to the copyright matters: the site publishes all notable books uploaded there but removes books by the first request from the authors. The policy was in obvious contradiction with the Russian copyright law, but for more than ten years nobody objected. Indeed many authors and publishing houses considered placements of their works in the Moshkov library beneficial to the sales of the paper copies of the books.
The Kirill i Mefody company (named after the Cyril
Saints Cyril and Methodius
Saints Cyril and Methodius were two Byzantine Greek brothers born in Thessaloniki in the 9th century. They became missionaries of Christianity among the Slavic peoples of Bulgaria, Great Moravia and Pannonia. Through their work they influenced the cultural development of all Slavs, for which they...
and Methodius) started in 1995 was the creator of the Large KM Encyclopedia and other multimedia products. In 1998 they created the portal
Web portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....
KM Online that gave paying users internet access to their Encyclopedia and their own collection of online books. Unlike Moshkov, Kirill i Mefody library offered the copyright holders up to 20% of its revenue from the downloads of E-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
s from paying users. In exchange it required an exclusive rights over internet publications. The revenue from the paid downloads was low, since most of the E-books offered by Kirill i Mefody for fee-paying users were freely available on the sites like the Moshkov library.
In 2004 Kirill i Mefody requested Moshkov library to remove access to a long list of books, claiming that they have exclusive internet rights on the books. Among the authors in the list were authors who died in 1920s and 1930s e.g. Nikolay Gumilyov
Nikolay Gumilyov
Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilev was an influential Russian poet who founded the acmeism movement.-Early life and poems:Nikolai was born in the town of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island, into the family of Stepan Yakovlevich Gumilev , a naval physician, and Anna Ivanovna L'vova . His childhood nickname was...
that were usually considered public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. The rationale as explained by Kirill i Mefody was that victims of the political repression
Political repression
Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....
in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
could not enjoy the copyright privileges before their official rehabilitation, thus, their heirs are entitled to offer Kirill i Mefody an exclusive rights in internet even after the legal 50 years after the author's death. Moshkov refused to honor the request and the lawsuit ensued. It was the first Russian lawsuit regarding the rights for internet distribution in Russia. The movements of KM were supported by the National Society for Digital Technologies (Национальное общество по цифровым технологиям (НОЦИТ)), a Russian organization for the promotion copyright in computer-related areas.
The lawsuit
The case was heard in Ostankino Court of MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. Originally the KM asked for $500,000 as a compensation for their exclusive rights, but the court did not take the case. The contracts for the exclusive internet rights were considered invalid. The KM have taken an alternative route and filed applications on behalf of the authors: Alexandra Marinina
Alexandra Marinina
Alexandra Marinina is a best-selling Russian writer of detective stories.-Biography:...
, Vasily Golovachyov, Eduard Gevorkyan and Elena Kasatonova. All of them but the sci-fi writer Eduard Gevorkyan later called off their signatures claiming that they were not aware of the lawsuits on their behalf.
Eduard Gevorkyan's claimed losses of 1mln rouble
Russian ruble
The ruble or rouble is the currency of the Russian Federation and the two partially recognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Formerly, the ruble was also the currency of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union prior to their breakups. Belarus and Transnistria also use currencies with...
s (approximately $30,000) due to the Moshkov publication his novel Rules of the game without rule on his internet site. He also sued the Internet provided Nexter, who hosted Moshkov library. The final verdict of the court on May 31, 2005 was that the internet provider is not responsible for the copyright violations of the site and that Moshkov's responsibility is much less - only 3,000 roubles (approximately $100).
Both sides claimed their victory. On one side the court recognized some sort of responsibility of free internet services, on the other side the claim amount was vastly reduced from $500,000 to $100 and generated a great deal of negative publicity for the claimant.
External links
Verdict of the Court Court case Background Analysis of the case Interview with Moshkov Internet pirate Moshkov is waiting for the New lawsuits, by KM.RU- Computer Crime Research Center: Russian Courts Attack On-line Libraries, April 1, 2005. URL last accessed 2006-08-25.
- MosNews.com: Russia’s Biggest Online Library Found Guilty of Breaching Copyright, April 1, 2005. URL last accessed 2006-08-25.
- Gorodissky & Partners: The owner of electronic library Lib.ru recognized guilty of copyright violation. URL last accessed 2006-08-25.