Russian Internet Forum: copyright-no-mercy and Linux the allmighty

Copyright section was probably the toughest one at Russian Internet Forum (April 5-7). The main discussion flamed around Civil Code part IV amendments that come into force next year's start. The law actually bans any web publication that was not formalized by a written contract between its author and a publisher. Hardly a few can now boast having such papers so the ocean of suits might be on the way to court. These new amendments contain no record of Creative Commons, GPL or any global open source standards. To make it even worse, Russian law hasn't got any appropriate 'website' definition. Section participants dealing with law explained that in terms of Civil Code website could be seen as 'a computer program' or even 'a database'. Even hyper-links can be treated as 'transport' so the publication of a link to some There were no practical cases though.

The new copyright law changed the perspective for Linux developers as well. It came to the participants of round-table discussion on freeware that international copyright standards like Creative Commons and GPL are outlawed in Russia. However Petr Frolov from LinuxCenter.ru distributing CDs with Linux during said every copy contains 'all required labels of authors and publishers'. Anton Nosik from Sup Fabric resumed how senseless was the whole idea to discuss the right in the Web applied to the country where you may buy a pirate DVD next door to Federal Security Service building. Still the participants of the discussion stayed optimistic and welcomed free browser applications which would ceize the need to buy or download anything.