Wikipedia Fears That Russian Anti-Piracy Law Could Shut Them Down

[nsane.forums]

The executive director of Wikimedia has voiced concerns that Wikipedia in Russia could be taken offline thanks to the country’s new anti-piracy law. The new legislation, which comes into force on August 1, allows copyright holders to have websites blocked if they link to infringing material. Since Wikipedia has millions of hyperlinks to content that may or may not be authorized, the famous online encyclopedia is in an extremely vulnerable position.

In just three weeks time Russia will introduce brand new legislation aimed at reducing online copyright infringement of movies and TV shows.

Dubbed ‘Russia’s SOPA‘, the law will see copyright holders filing lawsuits against sites carrying or linking to infringing content. Site owners will then be given 72 hours to remove the suspect material. Failure to do so will result in their entire site being blocked by Internet service providers pending the outcome of a court hearing.

For very large indexes such as Google and Yandex, who have complained heavily about the law, the legislation could prove a nightmare. These sites carry millions of links, any of which could connect to infringing content. Monitoring them all will prove impossible but responding to complaints quickly will be an absolutely necessity.

In addition to search engines, concerns over the new regime are now being voiced by the organization behind Wikipedia.

Speaking with Russian publication Digit.ru, Stanislav Kozlovsky, executive director of Wikimedia Russia, says that due to its nature, Wikipedia is in a very vulnerable position.

Millions of pages on the site carry several links to external sources and Kozlovsky says that it’s impossible to check whether all of those sites are officially licensed. As a result, Wikipedia is probably linking to unauthorized content and could in theory be blocked by the country’s ISPs if things get out of hand.

Ideally, rightsholders will show some common sense and direct their complaints directly to Wikipedia instead of to the authorities, but that’s far from guaranteed. One only has to check out Google’s Transparency Report to see that rightsholders and anti-piracy outfits have no problem trying to have Wikipedia pages de-indexed.

Over the past two years dozens of rightsholders including Sony Music, Microsoft, The Publishers Association, Home Box Office and Warner have sent complaints about Wikipedia.org directly to Google.

In many (but not all) instances, Google refused to remove the pages. For the Internet’s sake, let’s hope Russian authorities are as diligent.

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[GRiM]

Then move host! What is so hard about that?

[Cypher3927]

Then move host! What is so hard about that?

What's so hard about that is that people are running out of places to move where there isn't some douchebag organization trying to extort money or threaten a site with being shut down. Not to mention it doesn't solve the actual issue.

[GRiM]

Then move host! What is so hard about that?

What's so hard about that is that people are running out of places to move where there isn't some douchebag organization trying to extort money or threaten a site with being shut down. Not to mention it doesn't solve the actual issue.

Rubbish, There is still plenty of places they could host where their site would be legal.

[CODYQX4]

Then move host! What is so hard about that?

What's so hard about that is that people are running out of places to move where there isn't some douchebag organization trying to extort money or threaten a site with being shut down. Not to mention it doesn't solve the actual issue.

Rubbish, There is still plenty of places they could host where their site would be legal.

Won't stop them from blocking the site when viewed from Russia...

[Cypher3927]

Then move host! What is so hard about that?

What's so hard about that is that people are running out of places to move where there isn't some douchebag organization trying to extort money or threaten a site with being shut down. Not to mention it doesn't solve the actual issue.

Rubbish, There is still plenty of places they could host where their site would be legal.

Well I was thinking beyond just Wikipedia but even that site will eventually have issues as copyright laws grow ever more ridiculous, forget about sites that exist in a grey area. Every time these idiots get what they want they just come back asking for more and that's never going to stop because they just want to see how far they can push things. With government being sold to the highest bidder (aka lobbying) like in the United States I'm sure they'll be terrorizing the planet for a long time to come. Especially when the US uses it's political pressure to bully other countries into incorporating their pathetic views. This whole fiasco is a direct result of pressure from the democracy of hypocrisy. And CODYQX4 is absolutely correct that they will block it for Russians and that's the whole point. Most domain blocking is happening to sites not even hosted in the country where the legislation is enacted.

[GRiM]

Then move host! What is so hard about that?

What's so hard about that is that people are running out of places to move where there isn't some douchebag organization trying to extort money or threaten a site with being shut down. Not to mention it doesn't solve the actual issue.

Rubbish, There is still plenty of places they could host where their site would be legal.

Won't stop them from blocking the site when viewed from Russia...

Well that's completely besides the point. We're talking about "shutting down of" and hosting of site not viewing of it.

[Cypher3927]

Then move host! What is so hard about that?

What's so hard about that is that people are running out of places to move where there isn't some douchebag organization trying to extort money or threaten a site with being shut down. Not to mention it doesn't solve the actual issue.

Rubbish, There is still plenty of places they could host where their site would be legal.

Won't stop them from blocking the site when viewed from Russia...

Well that's completely besides the point. We're talking about "shutting down of" and hosting of site not viewing of it.

Why is it completely besides the point? It operates like SOPA was intended to in the United States which is site-blocking. Isn't that why they call it Russia's SOPA? Also keep in mind that we may not know all the details concerning what they are fully intending to do. I'm sure that it will be a two-pronged approach of shutting down infringing sites that are hosted in Russian territory as well as domain blocking.

[GRiM]

Then move host! What is so hard about that?

What's so hard about that is that people are running out of places to move where there isn't some douchebag organization trying to extort money or threaten a site with being shut down. Not to mention it doesn't solve the actual issue.

Rubbish, There is still plenty of places they could host where their site would be legal.

Won't stop them from blocking the site when viewed from Russia...

Well that's completely besides the point. We're talking about "shutting down of" and hosting of site not viewing of it.

Why is it completely besides the point? It operates like SOPA was intended to in the United States which is site-blocking. Isn't that why they call it Russia's SOPA? Also keep in mind that we may not know all the details concerning what they are fully intending to do. I'm sure that it will be a two-pronged approach of shutting down infringing sites that are hosted in Russian territory as well as domain blocking.

Because 1) They can host outside of Russia and avoid Russia's laws and 2) even if Russia decide they want to block the address its useless and many proxy sites will open up or you can use one of the many that are currently available or million other ways.