Russian media watchdog permanently blocks 234 pirate websites

[Len]

MOSCOW, September 19 (RAPSI) – Russian media and communications watchdog (Roskomnadzor) has permanently blocked 234 digital piracy websites, head of the agency Alexander Zharov told journalists on Tuesday.

Zharov stated that fight against digital piracy is successful. According to the official, the Moscow City Court blocked 3,700 websites containing stolen content with 2,500 being unblocked after deletion of materials in question. 234 of the websites were blocked permanently, those include online cinemas and torrent-trackers.

The official reminded that on October 1, the law on blocking of mirror websites comes into force.

President Vladimir Putin signed the law on July 3. It was drafted based on examination of practice of blocking forever websites, which repeatedly and illegally distributed information containing objects of copyright and (or) related rights, or information required for procurement thereof with the use of data telecommunications networks. The examination has revealed some deficiencies including inapplicability of prompt measures regarding automatically created “mirrors” of the blocked websites.

The law introduces the term “derived Internet site” (mirror website) into Russian legislation and prescribe the procedure of access restriction to such webpages on grounds of rights holders’ reference to the Moscow City Court. The law also obliges search systems providers to delete information on such websites from the search results.