Search results : 239

In a case concerning the defamation of the Mayor of Moscow, Savenko (Limonov) v. Russia, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found that the Russian Federation has violated the applicant’s freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The (alleged) defamatory statements where uttered during a debate on radio and published on the radio station’s website. The ECtHR disagreed with the assessment by the Moscow courts that in a case of defamation the suffering of the elected head of the executive had a much greater value than...

A Commission has been created in accordance with the Law on the regulation of online cinema services, adopted in 2017. The Russian Government has approved the composition of the Commission for the coordination of the ownership, management or control in relation to the owner of audiovisual services. The Vice Prime Minister Konstantin Chuichenko was appointed as Chairman of the Commission; the order was published on the Internet portal for legal information. The task of the Commission, as stated in the document, is to make decisions on the approval of the ownership, management or direct or...

On 21 November, 2019, at the third and final reading, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted the draft law providing the possibility of applying the status of mass media foreign agent to individuals. On 25 November, the law was signed by the President of the Russian Federation. The amendments suggest that the individuals can be recognised as "performing the functions of a foreign agent" on a par with legal entities if they create or distribute (including online) the information of the mass media foreign agent and at the same time receive money or material assets of foreign...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has delivered a judgment concerning the refusal to grant a film reproduction licence to a Russian film producer on the ground that he was suspected of producing and distributing pornographic films. The ECtHR found that the refusal was a too far-reaching and non-justified restriction on the film producer’s freedom of expression, violating Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The applicant in Pryanishnikov v. Russia is a film producer who owns the copyright to over 1 500 erotic films. The films were approved for public distribution...

Following its plenary meeting on 11 April 2019, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation issued a Resolution “On the Judicial Practice Related to Part Four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation”. Part Four of the Civil Code was adopted in 2006 and relates to the regulation of different aspects of intellectual property (see IRIS 2007-1/31). The resolution is extensive; it has 182 paragraphs on the procedural, general and specific provisions of Part Four, such as the protection of the results of intellectual activity, the use of exclusive rights, copyright, and neighbouring rights. In particular,...