Russian Federation

[RU] State Duma adopts draft law on the blocking of infringing content in mobile apps

IRIS 2020-7:1/15

Ekaterina Semenova

Confederation of Rightholders societies of Europe and Asia

On 27 May 2020, the State Duma adopted amendments on blocking mobile apps that violate copyright and related rights.

The bill was introduced in the State Duma in 2018 by a group of deputies. According to the bill, Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) shall determine the owner of the information resource where the infringing app is located within three working days after receiving a corresponding request from the rightsholder.

Roscomnadzor shall then submit an electronic notification of copyright infringement to the owner of the information resource where the app is hosted, requiring them to take measures to restrict access to the information.

The owner of the information resource has one working day from the moment of receipt of the notification from Roskomnadzor to inform the owner of the software application and to notify him or her of the need to immediately restrict access to objects of copyright or related rights.

According to the draft law, the app owner must restrict access to objects of copyright and related rights within one working day after receiving a notification from the owner of the information resource. If the user fails to do this, the owner of the information resource hosting the software application must restrict access to the application in question. If the owner of the information resource has not restricted access to the application, information is sent to the communication operators to take measures to restrict access to the application.

The law is expected to come into force on 1 October 2020.