MOSCOW-RUSSIA TAKING THE LEAD IN INTERNET CRIME AND CYBER MORALITY....

As part of increasing efforts by the world’s largest entertainment companies

to crack down on Internet piracy, various initiatives are seeking to deprive so-called
‘pirate’ sites of their income.
According to the Russian Association of Electronic Communications big
companies are supporting piracy with $70 million a year because of their
online-advertising. They plan to negotiate with the named companies to take down their ads.
For a long time, Russia has been a haven for software pirates, with a
government doing nothing about it.Legislation changed however two years ago with new anti-piracy laws that
require internet service providers to block pirate sites. According to Torrentfreak, some days ago access to 280 Pirate sites has been restricted in Russia. With the new initiative, the Russian
Government takes another important step to dry out the big shady sector of
Media piracy in Rlussia.


“If we can agree with the agencies, the pirate business will die by itself,”
says Media chief Marina Surygina.
While the government and local industry may indeed succeed in forcing
large companies to withdraw their support for pirate sites, there are plenty
of smaller operations that are only too willing to take up the slack.

“Our ‘follow the money’ initiative was supported and announced by deputy
minister Volin. We have detailed research on brand advertising on pirate
sites including all campaign details, URLs, agencies etc,” Byrdin says.
“We’re going to go all the way with these brands and reveal either their
hypocrisy or negligence.”
Automobile manufacturers including Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Mazda and Volvo are all
being accused of being pirate sponsors by the government, alongside
technology giant Microsoft and personal grooming product company
Gillette.

But that’s just the beginning of a hardline stance that also includes site
blacklisting . “We’re ready to start taking responsibility for this and
establishing a commission to blacklist sites,” Wolin continued. “But we’ll
need government approval for that.”
Back in America, the idea of starving piracy is hardly an idea at all. In a
recent Forbes op-ed, RIAA president Cary Sherman complained about legal
loopholes in the DMCA and useless ‘whack-a-mole’ enforcement, but didn’t
even mention the elephant-in-the-room of major brand advertising.
Meanwhile, streaming industry revenues are being crippled by free access ,
with advertisers seemingly happy to support legal or illegal sites alike.