Medvedev talks tough about piracy

Ten years after the Motion Picture Assn.-backed group was set up to both lobby for and lead front-line assaults against Russia's massive, organized video and DVD piracy networks, steady progress is being made.

Criminal law reform has increased maximum prison terms and doubled fines to $20,000 for producers and sellers of pirated product.

A wide range of new administrative measures, which include requirements to report the purchase and sale of large-scale DVD and video copying equipment, coupled with municipal trading-standards laws, are also being employed to tighten the grip on pirates.

Stepping up the fight against intellectual piracy offenses is a key part of Medvedev's strategy to gain coveted Russian membership in the World Trade Organization.

Russia's lax record on stemming vast piracy that costs legitimate license holders an estimated $2 billion a year has been among the key stumbling blocks to its getting membership in the world's top trade club.

Medvedev has put combating piracy at the top of a new drive to stamp out corruption and what he calls Russia's "culture of legal nihilism."

In January, Medvedev, a civil lawyer by training and keen fan of the Internet -- which is a major source for illegal music and film downloads in Russia -- boosted antipiracy campaigners when he condemned those who buy bootleg material.

"Medvedev expects Russia to join the WTO by the end of this year," says Zemchenkov, a former KGB officer. "We hope that under Medvedev we shall be able to achieve the last few amendments to copyright laws, although now, after 10 years of struggling, we are quite satisfied with the legal framework we have."

Improvements to the criminal code combined with better training for enforcement agencies and local trading-standards bodies, plus increased sales of cheaper, locally made licensed movies, have helped drive down piracy's market share in Moscow and other major cities to 50%, although provincial rates are still as high as 90% of the market, Zemchenkov says.

But encouraging signs are evident, he adds, pointing to a recent raid on a pirate DVD factory near Moscow carried out by the police without any prompting from RAPO, and a slew of shop and kiosk closures following raids by trading-standards officials and RAPO's special retail group.

"Medvedev wants to tighten the enforcement of copyright law. After 10 years of struggle, we are finally looking forward to a fairer playing field for legitimate rights holders in the future," Zemchenkov says.