Online cinemas oppose “compulsory licenses”

The bill says that Russian companies will be able to obtain inaccessible licenses for “cinematic works, computer programs, music collections, literary and other works” through the courts from rights holders of countries that refuse to sell directly. licensed content.

The head of the Internet Video Association, Alexey Byrdin, believes that the initiative is contrary to the logic of the Russian Civil Code, violates international agreements and seriously increases the burden on the courts and executive power. In his opinion, the developers of the project did not take into account the variety of models and the complexity of the business in the field of cinema and television.

The author of the bill, Andrey Kuznetsov, assured that it will take into account the peculiarities of each industry. He stressed that the main task of the document is to provide Russians with access to cultural values ​​and support the country’s economy. According to him, businessmen resist, for whom the interests of the population or the national economy are not important, but only relative owners of rights from hostile countries.

Yury Fedyukin, managing partner of Enterprise Legal Solutions, understands the position of online cinemas: they manage to obtain the rights to films and series through cooperation with foreign partners. In this sense, the negative impact “can be reduced by statutes.”

In April, the Internet Video Association proposed to the government to reduce VAT on subscriptions to movies and TV series from Russian online cinemas from 20% to 10%. This will increase investment in domestic content production, which in turn will alleviate the lack of foreign premiere content.