Russian Copyright Law and Rights Licensing Organizations

Sergey Budylin, Roche and Duffay, and Yulia Osipova have published "Is AllofMP3 Legal? Non-Contractual Licensing Under Russian Copyright Law," at 7 Suffolk University Journal of High Technology Law 1 (2007). Here is the abstract.

Lately, Russian copyright law has attracted keen interest of foreign media and law review authors. The interest is mostly related to the activity of several Russian web sites (such as AllofMP3) selling copyrighted music at low price and without piracy protection.

Russian law in principle allows collective right-management organizations to issue licenses for musical works without having respective right holders' permission. The statutory law does not clearly indicate when exactly this is possible. However, courts do not enforce this provision against unwilling right holders. Foreign right holders covered by the Bern Convention or other international treaties of Russia can get protection if they are ready to sue relevant management organizations and their licensees in Russia. The upcoming intellectual-property-law reform enhance protection of right holders in this particular respect.

Download the article from SSRN here.