Gevorkyan v. Moshkov
Gevorkyan v. Moshkov (Russian: Геворкян против Мошкова) was a landmark case that established the precedent for the application of
Background
The Kirill i Mefody company (named after
In 2004 Kirill i Mefody requested Moshkov library to remove access to a long list of books, claiming that they have exclusive internet rights on the books. Among the authors in the list were authors who died in 1920s and 1930s e.g.
The lawsuit
The case was heard in Ostankino Court of Moscow. Originally the KM asked for $500,000 as a compensation for their exclusive rights, but the court did not take the case. The contracts for the exclusive internet rights were considered invalid. The KM took an alternative route and filed applications on behalf of the authors: Alexandra Marinina, Vasili Golovachov, Eduard Gevorkyan and Elena Kasatonova. All of them except the sci-fi writer Eduard Gevorkyan later retracted their signatures claiming that they were not aware of the lawsuits on their behalf.
Eduard Gevorkyan's claimed losses of 1 million roubles (approximately $30,000) due to the Moshkov publication his novel Rules of the game without rule on his internet site. He also sued the Internet provider Nexter, who hosted Moshkov library. The final verdict of the court on 31 May 2005 was that the internet provider is not responsible for the copyright violations of the site and that Moshkov's responsibility is much less – only 3,000 roubles (approximately $100).
Both sides claimed victory. On one side the court recognized some sort of responsibility of free internet services, on the other side the claim amount was vastly reduced from $500,000 to $100 and generated a great deal of negative publicity for the claimant.
After the lawsuit
Part of the Lib.ru library, namely some materials from the site "Samizdat", are included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials under the number 381 by the decision of the Cherepovets Municipal Court of the Vologda Region on 13 April 2009. At that moment part of the providers completely blocked access to the site rather than to specific materials. The site was forced to change the domain to samlib.ru, access to which is also blocked by some Russian providers as of 2015.[2]
References
- ^ Vladimir Abramovich Vul (2003): Who and why?, Bibliotechnoye Delo(Librarianship) 2(2) [1] (Russian)
- ^ "За что провайдеры блокируют "Самиздат" - Компьютерра-Онлайн". Archived from the original on 19 August 2010. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
External links
- (in Russian) Interview with Moshkov
- (in Russian) Internet pirate Moshkov is waiting for the New lawsuits, by KM.RU
- Computer Crime Research Center: Russian Courts Attack On-line Libraries, 1 April 2005. URL last accessed 2006-08-25.
- MosNews.com: Russia's Biggest Online Library Found Guilty of Breaching Copyright, 1 April 2005. URL last accessed 2006-08-25.
- Gorodissky & Partners: The owner of electronic library Lib.ru recognized guilty of copyright violation. URL last accessed 2006-08-25.