POST NUMBER 6109 NOVEMBER 2012COPYRIGHT IN RUSSIA AND THE NORMATIVE CHANGES BREWING IN THE EU Russia is a signatory of the

Berne Convention, an international agreement dating from 09 September 1886, which is the foundational legal instrument defining the legal relations, rights, and responsibilities regarding the protection of written as well as oral compositions, visual as well as oral plus other musical productions of authors, broadcasters, performers, producers, and publishers. This historic convention has some 164 members including Russia, Sweden, and the USA. It (http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html), for example, sets important requisites as minima for national legal regulations e.g., the duration of copyright protection. That convention was complemented by the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT; http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html), which came into force on 6 March 2002. Its 89-country membership likewise includes the Russia, Sweden, and the USA. In the WCTs preamble, the aims include updating copyright protection in light of technological developments in the digital means of communication and [e]mphasizing the outstanding significance of copyright protection as an incentive for literary and artistic creation. Seventy years after the creators death is a common ceiling for the duration of a copyright, although the Berne Convention (7) sets 50 years as a minimum. The relatedrights of performers, the producers of phonograms (e.g., musical albums), and broadcasting organizations are covered by the Rome Convention of 26 October 1961 (also in 7; http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/rome/trtdocs_wo024.html) that likewise sets a 50-year term from when the fixation is made. Notably Russia, Sweden, and the USA are signatories of the 1961 Rome Convention with the WTOs TRIPS Agreement also reiterating this parameter (http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/t_agm0_e.htm). Presently copyright is addressed in Part IV of the Russian Civil Code, Division VII, Chapters 70 and 71 i.e., 1255-1344 (http://www.rupto.ru/rupto/portal/a42d38d247e7-11e1-48db-9c8e9921fb2c & http://www.rupto.ru/rupto/nfile/3b05468f-4b25-11e136f8-9c8e9921fb2c/Civil_Code.pdf). Regarding the pending draft law . 47538-6, at its pre-second reading stage before the State Duma, it is early to draw conclusions about whether there will be more than incremental changes to the copyright chapters e.g., to the articles addressing the collection and distribution of royalties from broadcasters. One of the more notable differences in a fairly homogeneous international regime of copyright law is the fair use exception of 17 U.S, Code 107 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107). Several have called attention to an attitudinal sociological parallel to this legal exception in the tolerant practice of many of us as users of the Internet as regards the sharing of copyrighted files see, Stefan Larsson, Metaphors & Normsunderstanding copyright in a digital society (Lund University, 2011; http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=2157989&fileOId=2 158125). That is, the readiness with which much obviously copyrighted material findable on the Internet is downloaded by users with little or no compunction (see also Larrson, 2012, Conceptions In The Code: What The Copyright Wars Tell Us About Creativity, Social Change And Normative Conflicts In The Digital Society http://ssrn.com/abstract=2174334). As part of his thesis for a doctorate in law, Larsson together with others conducted demographic surveys on attitudes toward obedience to laws restricting copyright 1

infringement e.g., the EUs IPR Enforcement Directive (IPRED), IPRED2, the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive 2005/0127, and see generally (http://www.laquadrature.net/en/anti-sharing-directive-ipred). He found confirmation of an audience taking advantage of and consumers for the notorious recent examples of Pirate Bay and Megaupload. A trend in the entirely opposite direction is represented by the recent German copyright legislation (see http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3131feda-24f7-11e2-892400144feabdc0.html#axzz2Bv2Eg8T2) that is a challenge to the free-loading made by news-aggregation programs, most notably Google News.