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On 2 July 2013, the President of the Russian Federation signed into law the Statute amending several statutes of civil law, procedural law and information law. The new Act introduces a number of measures aimed at boosting the ability of rightsholders to cease stop distribution of illegal video content via the Internet. According to the Statute, a new Article was introduced into the Civil Code (Art. 1253.1) providing rules for liability of so called “internet mediators”, i.e. those either providing technical transmission of the information on the Internet (internet providers) or providing the hosting...

On 9 July 2013, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation adopted a Resolution concerning the constitutionality of several paragraphs of Article 152 (“Defamation”) of the Russian Civil Code. The case was raised by a citizen named Krylov who complained that the Civil Code does not oblige the Internet service providers (ISPs) to remove defamatory statements made by third parties. The complaint arose from decisions of the courts of first and second instances in the Sverdlovsk region on the lawsuit of Mr Krylov against the regional ISP. The plaintiff demanded that the defendant remove remarks...

On 20 April 2013 the Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a decree effectively changing the composition of the country’s first DTT multiplex. (see IRIS 2011-7/41, IRIS 2009-10/25 and IRIS plus 2013-1). This multiplex will now no longer carry a regional channel and will be entirely federal, with the 10th slot being allocated to the TV company “TV Tsentr” (TV Center). TV Center is an open stock company with over 99 percent of the stock in the hands of the City Government of Moscow (which is legally not a municipality, but rather a subject of the Russian Federation, or a province), the chair of...

On 8 October 2012, Высший Арбитражный суд Российской Федерации (The Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation) adopted at its plenary session Resolution “Об обеспечении гласности в арбитражном процессе” (On Provisions of Glasnost in Commercial Court Procedure). The Resolution instructs the judges (about 4,000 in total) of such courts that text reporting from the court sessions via social media and Internet with the use of personal technical means is allowed without any special permission or notification of the presiding judge or sides of the parties in the proceedings. The Supreme Commercial...

On 4 September 2012, the governmental watchdog agency for the media and communications, Roskomnadzor (see IRIS 2011-1/46 and IRIS 2011-7/42), issued recommendations to the media outlets on how to apply the recently amended Federal Statute “On the Protection of Minors against Information Detrimental to their Health and Development” (see IRIS 2011-4/34 and IRIS 2012-8/36). In particular, the Recommendations spell out rules for placement of markings for the ratings of the “informational products”, related to the age of their consumers in audiovisual and online media. For TV programmes the sign indicating...