Russian Site-Blocking Leads To An Explosion In 'Pirate' Sites, Tiny Dip In Piracy
from the oops dept
Over the past couple of years, we’ve discussed Russia putting in what is supposed to be an extreme site-blocking policy, in part to curb piracy. There has been a fair amount of mostly anecdotal evidence that has suggested that the video pirate market in Russia has actually increased during this time, while there is very concrete evidence as to the insane amount of collateral damage that the site-blocking policy has caused. Some found this puzzling, but new data out of Russia suggests that the effects on piracy are muted at least in part because of an explosion in new piracy sites or mirrors of blocked sites.
For example, the company says that in 2017, the number of torrent sites offering content to the Russian market sat at around 1,300. However, last year – in the face of overwhelming blocking measures – that number grew to around 2,000.
In 2018, torrent sites accounted for just over a fifth of the ‘pirate’ market (streaming platforms dominate with more than 70%) but due to multiple links to the same content appearing on most platforms, torrent links accounted for around 40% of the available links to pirated material. Further underlining the importance of torrents, despite a smaller share of the market, the company reports that in 87% of cases, the first public copies of premiere titles appeared on torrent sites first, before spreading out to other platforms such as streaming and hosting sites.
Meanwhile, the number of streaming sites increased slightly as well. The report also notes that over all traffic to so-called pirate sites in Russia has “dipped slightly”, causing something of a victory cry to come from the content industries with offerings in the country as, I suppose, the overall per-capita, per-site-available piracy rate fell. But, for such a draconian regime, huge amounts of collateral damage coupled with an increase in pirate sites and a tiny drop in traffic to those sites, this isn’t exactly a glowing review.
So of course Russia is doubling down on it.
Meanwhile, Russia is further investing in site-blocking with the introduction of a new system. Telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor reports that to date, 660 large telecoms operators have switched to a new mechanism which allows sites to be blocked more efficiently.
“The new mechanism allows service providers to receive data from the Unified Registry [national blacklist] for only updated or changed entries instead of downloading the entire data set,” Roscomnadzor reports.
This may, again, show a slight increase in the Russian government’s effectiveness in its arms race against filesharing sites, but this isn’t going to change the fundamental reality that site-blocking is apparently barely effective, with disastrous results for far too many innocent sites.
Filed Under: copyright, piracy, russia, site blocking
Comments on “Russian Site-Blocking Leads To An Explosion In 'Pirate' Sites, Tiny Dip In Piracy”
Next Step
If these sites are outside of Russia to escape local laws, the next step would be one world government to impost a standardised set of laws everywhere.
Love Copyright? Love New World Order.
Re: Next Step
Who said anything about the Internet being fatally flawed?
Re: Re: Next Step
Fatally flawed = impossible to stop a federal crime from occurring online
Re: Re: Re: Next Step
If the internet isn’t designed to prevent crimes, then it’s not really fair to describe it’s failure to do so as a flaw. And it is not designed to do that.
Re: Next Step
Global government is inevitable.
Re: Re: Next Step
No it’s not. Too many separatists knocking about. Then there’s the question of who would be running it…
Re: Re: Re: Next Step
Me!
Re: Re: Re:2 Next Step
I daresay you’d do a better job than the incumbents, Bob.
Just come up with a method for enforcing copyright that has a minimal burden on a law-abiding internet.
If the internet is so fatally flawed that piracy cannot be stopped, that’s the internet’s problem to solve.
Locking up pirates would be a better alternative that would not cost the ISPs much. Why not try it?
Re: Re:
Because the ISPs/copyright holders would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an accused infringer committed an act of infringement in a court of law. That still costs money and time.
Then there is the small matter of degree — namely, whether you want to “lock up” all infringers or just some infringers based on assumedly arbitrary standards. (And whose standards would be the ones to use would be up in the air, too.)
And even if you get all that settled away, there is the matter of incarceration. How many people would you want “locked up”, for how long should they be in jail/prison, in what facilities do you intend to place them, and how would all of that account for potential overcrowding in already-overcrowded facilities?
Oh, and let’s assume that you do get this plan all worked out — all the details where they need to be and whatnot. I still have one more question you need to answer: How long do you think you would still advocate for this plan if it ended up ensnaring you as an infringer, even if your infringement was “minimal” and “accidental”?
Re: Re: Re:
Remember that we’re talking about Russia here.
Re: Re: Re:
I never infringe content.
For prison, mass uploaders would be a start. IP addresses are used as the basis for defamation lawsuits (why not say IP is insufficient to identify a speaker?), and of course threats against people in power. Probable cause would enable law enforcement to get the necessary evidence, as it can do now.
Under no circumstances does the internet get more consideration than copyright here, and that’s what bothers the "internet maximalists."
Perhaps we can have fanfiction turned into something with a mechanical license like the covering of songs.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I never infringe content"
Says you. Seeing as you accept accusations at face value for other people – I say you do exactly this thing and you need to be locked up.
"Probable cause would enable law enforcement to get the necessary evidence, as it can do now."
Yet, you don’t support due process for others so what does it matter?
Re: Re: Re:
If your web browser has a cache and you looked in it, you would find an untold amount of content cached from numerous sites across the web. The question, then, is this: How many of those sites gave you explicit permission to make copies of their content that way?
You can talk all you want about how “that’s just how the Internet works” and offer up plenty of excuses. But since you and your troll brigade friends love to extoll the virtues of copyright maximalism to the point where you once said we should execute infringers…well, “incidental” infringement is still infringement, which means you would one day suffer the fate of all infringers, accidental or intentional, large- or small-scale. How much zeal would you put into your plan then?
And such lawsuits are typically bullshit unless they can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the IP address is connected to the accused party — and that the accused party was the one who posted defamatory content through that IP. “Innocent until proven guilty” is still a thing, you know.
No, what bothers the “Internet maximalists”¹ is the idea from copyright maximalists that copyright must override everything about the Internet that makes it such a powerful communications system. Wanna post that meme? Gotta go get permission from the image’s original rightsholders! Wanna share a link? Gotta pay a tax! Wanna remix a movie clip or make an AMV? Ten thousand years, dungeon!
Hell, you bring up fanfiction, but under the draconian systems devised by copyright maximalists like you, fanfic writers and fanartists alike would absolutely be jailed because their work infringes upon someone else’s copyright. Doesn’t matter if they can defend it as “parody” or “Fair Use” or whatever — it is all still technically infringing, and whatever punishment you would deem fitting for a direct infringer of copyrights for music or movies or TV shows or books must be the punishment visited upon both fanfic writers and fanartists. It is, after all, the punishment for people who, unlike you, infringe upon the copyrights of other people’s content.
And if that all sounds a bit harsh, just remember: You cannot enforce copyright to its fullest extent and leave the Internet the way it is. Either you accept that some infringement is necessary for the Internet to exist as it does right now — not that you have to like that fact — or you prepare to smash the Internet apart and reshape it into a one-way-only broadcast medium for the corporations that have the means to protect their copyrights to the fullest extent possible. You cannot have both.
¹ ~ That is a wonderfully vague phrase that can mean whatever you want it to mean for the sake of a given argument. Want to make discussing anything that uses the phrase harder to discuss on its actual merits so you can score Internet Debate points, huh?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"Hell, you bring up fanfiction, but under the draconian systems devised by copyright maximalists like you, fanfic writers and fanartists alike would absolutely be jailed because their work infringes upon someone else’s copyright"
Also – and this is most important – fan fiction is a natural part of progression for people learning their craft. Many writers cut their teeth on fan fiction. Many musicians started with cover versions. Many filmmakers started by copying their favourite works
It’s a vital part of the process. The only difference is that now the fan fiction can be as accessible as the originals. Remove the internet, and people will still be copying in this way, as they always did before. The only difference will be that they’re not allowed to show anyone their work, lest they be thrown in jail for it.
He thinks he’s arguing for more money for creators, but he’s actually demanding that the next generation be stopped before they can begin. Perfectly in line for someone who is trying to stop all independent creation in favour of corporate control, but not in line with someone who understand the media they’re defending.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
(Also, bullshit.)
Re: Re:
You are pushing the standard copyright maximalist approach to infringement, use terror tactics to try and stop it. All that approach will end up doing is destroying what you wish to protect.
Re: Re: Re:
The more you tighten your grip, the more communication systems will slip through your fingers.
Re: Re: Re:
But Russia wouldn’t give Hollywood these powers, so at worst they’d only be destroying Russian culture and people would still watch the foreign stuff.
(If that’s not the intended consequence, they might look to Norway’s example.)
Re: Lower Cost
Even simpler – reduce copyright term. Boom, less infringement. More works in the public domain. Everyone wins!
But stiffer punishment works too. Every false takedown notice and a record executive goes to jail?
But seriously, I am just loving the idea that you think it’s Ok for corporations to spy on you so they can see if you are infringing. Upload filters. email filters – it’s all just fine because corporations are great.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but you just advocated for shutting down global electronic communications if they can’t properly detect infringement? That seems to be pushing for mandatory spying, and less communications.
Re: Re: Lower Cost
One need not shut down the internet to stop piracy. UGC might be a casualty unless they can design a form of UGC that doesn’t make piracy so simple.
ISPs already "spy" on their users.
If technological solutions are so hopeless, then long prison terms are the answer, and false reporting would become a crime in that situation (it already is actually even under the DMCA for "false statements to law enforcement.")
I wouldn’t mind a twenty-year term for copyright protection one bit.
Re: Re: Re: Lower Cost
"If technological solutions are so hopeless, then long prison terms are the answer"
Yes, that’s why there’s no murder, sexual assault or drug smuggling any more. Jesus…
"I wouldn’t mind a twenty-year term for copyright protection one bit."
Tell you what, let’s let you be the first person to be subject to the purge and see what people come up with in your past. I’d be willing to be that you have many skeletons for us to lock you up with – even unintentonally, as that doesn’t seem to be a big consideration for your attitude towards others.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lower Cost
There would be a lot more of those crimes if we didn’t lock people up for committing them. It’s like how taking out the trash doesn’t stop garbage from accumulating. Should we abolish Sanitation Departments?
We should move these discussions to a university setting so we can get academic credit for them.
Re: Re: Re:3 Lower Cost
So, you are actually comparing copying a file to murder?
You have seriously lost it.
Re: Re: Re:4 Lower Cost
He lost it when comparing it to child porn, forgetting that maximalists absolutely love it as they can use it to leverage support for their positions. Horrible, horrible people.
Re: Re:
I’m entertained by the humanization of "the internet".
The diverse protocols & devices that make up "the internet" are working exactly as expected – they are routing around blockages & moving data without issues. The basic computational concepts of moving, copying, & renaming data are fundamental to the logical concepts of most electronic devices & thus copyright maximalists are fighting a losing battle (as are the folks trying to legislate encryption) by attempting to bypass, avoid, & control mathematical, physical, & engineering operations.
Perhaps we should engage in something that the enterprise security community has understood for years – make the options to do things the legal way far easier than the effort required to bypass the system.
Re: Re: Re:
Perhaps we should engage in something that the enterprise security community has understood for years – make the options to do things the legal way far easier than the effort required to bypass the system.
Netflix arrives, infringement drops. Studios raise their rates, pulls titles from Netflix and infringement spikes.
Seems pretty straightforward, unless you get a hardon over copyright and need to "End Piracy."
Home taping is killing the music industry!!
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Home cooking is killing the restaurant industry.
Ham radios are killing the local telephone industry.
Home cameras are killing the television show industry
Free porn is killing the paying porn industry
Home theaters are killing the theater companies
Personal Cameras are killing the professional photography industry
[Insert random home activity] is killing [insert related industry] industry
Pretty much any industry or company can be impacted by someone just doing it themselves at home. But successful companies figure out how to do it better than those at home. And those are the ones that thrive
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Except the other examples don’t involve illegal conduct.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
If a law is the only reason not to do something, it’s the law that’s wrong.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Home taping is illegal. Various DVR technologies have been ruled illegal.
Copyright wasn’t even a criminal offense a few years ago – it was only a civil offense but the record companies got the law changed.
Why should the ISP’s and the police pay for upholding the line Blue?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
My mistake – Anonymous new user who Loves Copyright, supports Corporate rights to spy, but isn’t Blue.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Not illegal yet you mean. Give the incumbents enough time/money and they will do what they can to make it illegal. If they can’t accomplish that, then they at least try to male it near impossible for new business models and companies to operate.
Examples:
*ISPs making it illegal for municipalities to create their own networks.
*Laws restricting how new cars can be sold in the USA blocking Tesla.
*Taxi companies making it illegal to do ride sharing.
*Hotel chains lobbying for no more house sharing.
*Traditional movie studios and theaters trying to keep Netflix’s films out of major award shows so they don’t get recognized as a legitimate source of films.
Re: Re: Re:
It’s not a losing battle. It’s just a matter of which weapons are necessary to deter criminals.
Five-year prison sentences for those who illegally upload or download registered works would go a long way towards curbing piracy and would not cost any internet company a cent.
Those who do not want these penalties need to find a way to protect copyright within the construct of the internet as it exists now. The burden is not on the rightsholders.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Five-year prison sentences for those who illegally upload or download registered works would go a long way towards curbing piracy and would not cost any internet company a cent""
It’s a vastly disproportionate punishment, and would absolutely cost the ISPs a lot of money (for example – once you locked the subscriber up, who’s going to pay his bill while he’s in prison?). Not to mention the vastly greater costs to society and the taxpayer, on behalf of what might well be a maximum $1 purchase that was skipped.
You’re not only vastly oversimplifying the situation, you refuse to understand consequences of actions before the immediate ones.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Congress passed a law authorizing this penalty.
ISPs don’t want to profit from piracy anyway. The pirates are the reason all these draconian measures are being taken. It stands to reason that they are causing ISPs enormous damage.
If you find piracy tolerable for the greater good of the internet status quo, you won’t support this. It’s an internet-vs-copyright debate plain and simple.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
How do ISPs profit from piracy, as they neither control or direct users to content, but just carry bits from a to b?
That is the most annoying trope used by the maximalists, in that they claim all profit comes from copyright if they can find the most tenuous connection.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"Congress passed a law authorizing this penalty."
They really didn’t.
"The pirates are the reason all these draconian measures are being taken"
So, why are you so intent on damaging people who aren’t?
"It’s an internet-vs-copyright debate plain and simple."
The fact that you think it’s an either-or situation says more than your actual arguments do about your ignorance.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
"It’s that superhero’s fault for making me press the button to launch that nuke at Capitol City! I told him not to take another step! I had no choice!"
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
ISPs don’t want to profit from piracy anyway
You want to tell the RIAA that? They’re suing Cox and Grande for precisely that claim.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
The RIAA and other cartels sue all sorts of people for all sorts of crazy reasons. That doesn’t mean they have a valid claim, though.
Re: Re:
"Locking up pirates would be a better alternative that would not cost the ISPs much. Why not try it?"
Because you guys can never agree to a definition of "pirate" that doesn’t include millions of legitimate uses, your level of proof never goes beyond "they’re a pirate because I said so" and the demonstrable cost to society and the taxpayer of doing that far outweighs any proven losses from piracy you’ve ever presented.
Re: Re: Re:
Plus, of course, that still wouldn’t stop piracy.You deliberately forget that piracy existed long before the internet, and it will continue to exist long after it dies if you decide to kill it. Why not work with it to increase sales rather than try your damnedest to constantly make the legal alternative inferior?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Because that’s basically extortion: give us what we want or we will steal it.
Internet pirates are going to wind up being locked up en masse after all these other measures fail. Are they willing to crash the prison system with "Jail, not bail?"
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"Because that’s basically extortion: give us what we want or we will steal it"
Only if you ignore the vast majority of the argument and simplify it beyond any semblance of reality.
"Internet pirates are going to wind up being locked up en masse after all these other measures fail."
So, depending on the burden of proof and the definition of the term, most of the population? Good luck with that. You’re not listening to your own arguments if you think that the measures you fantasise over will only get the people actually committing infringement. It the 90% of the rest of us that you want to destroy in the process that’s the problem.
If only you weren’t so tied to fantasy that you weren’t able to understand what’s really being said…
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
A high bar for proof would mitigate innocent people being locked up. In cases of any type of ambiguity, probation or fines can be used.
The deterrent factor would cause most people to just stop pirating.
As a minor, I knew how to get free long distance any number of ways. I knew a kid who could call information, tell them he needed police, ask them to connect him, and after the police hung up he had a "cop line." All the providers had code systems and stuff that was easily hacked. Did that make what I was doing legal? The day I turned eighteen I stopped, and my partner-in-crinme did not. He got a visit from the feds and a slap on the wrist for agreeing to reveal his methods and not to do it anymore.
Was it ITT’s fault that I could overhear people punching in their codes on crossed lines and decipher the touch tones to build a list of about 150 working codes?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
"A high bar for proof would mitigate innocent people being locked up. In cases of any type of ambiguity, probation or fines can be used."
So…, you’ve already backed down? Good.
As for the rest of it, it’s nice of you to admit that you are a pirate. The fact that you stopped stealing when it was convenient for you to not pay for your crimes does not absolve you of guilt.
Re: Re: Re:4
“If we can’t prove you’re guilty, we’ll still punish you for appearing guilty.” What kind of backwards-ass thinking…
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
A high bar for proof? No one believes you, Mr. Statutory-Damages-Mean-I-Don’t-Need-to-Prove-Shit.
Re: Re: Re:2 still a false dichotomy.
Its probably more like:
give us what we want at an affordable price and in a reasonable manner
Or
we will steal it or make our own substitute of the thing you have.
Re: Re: Re:
Pirate = someone who knowingly uploads, downloads or otherwise obtains an illegal copy of a registered work.
Pretty simple.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Pirate = someone who knowingly uploads, downloads or otherwise obtains an illegal copy of a registered work."
OK. So, why are most of the measures you put forward so harmful to people who do no such thing?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
How do downloaders know if the copy they are downloading is infringing?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
In most, but not all, cases downloaders can escape liability. The argument is "implied license" by the existence of the download.
The downloader would have to have a personal library or something and have acquired it from sites where it was clear there was infringement, a very high bar. UPLOADERS, however, should be thankful they aren’t summarily executed. /sarcasm
Prison for uploaders sounds like the most efficient way to deal with piracy, as it wouldn’t cost the internet companies one cent. They have nothing to complain about in that scenario. We don’t stop piracy, we just lock up those who engage in it and are caught, as with other crime. Kind of like taking out the trash doesn’t eliminate trash but makes it manageable.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"In most, but not all, cases downloaders can escape liability"
Yes, you state different above:
"Pirate = someone who knowingly uploads, DOWNLOADS or otherwise obtains an illegal copy of a registered work."
Sure, you’re probably thinking you can make a distinction with that "knowingly" bit, but since the burden of proof you demand is so low, and the fact that it’s impossible to prove a negative, why should we trust you?
"Prison for uploaders sounds like the most efficient way to deal with piracy, as it wouldn’t cost the internet companies one cent"
You keep repeating that lie. Stop it.
Also, this isn’t just about which corporation you side with. A lot of things far more important than either company’s profits will be damaged, with a greater downside for everybody.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hmmm is it illegal if I download a copy of something I own? Suppose I own the DVD but I download the BD rip (because I bough the content not the format), is it piracy? What if I rip the thing for my personal use? What if I rip it and put it on my private network so others in it can watch my stuff? How do I know a determined site is allowed to serve the file (ie: stream) to me when there are plenty of places where you can watch stuff for free legally?
I’m just starting. It’s not simple.
Re: Re:
Jesus, you’d have to build a fence around the country and call it a prison. Every single person has pirated something somewhere in their lives. Either by accident or because they didn’t think they were pirating.
In Soviet Russia, site pirates you, dood!
Because if there’s one thing that makes blocking pirate sites difficult, it’s the size of the text files which (claim to) list them.
It’s not like there is a huge number of people with a know-how and experience of sharing multi-gigabyte files for free, that could help them share a few piddly little documents, right? Waaait a minute…
Oh, the irony 🙂
How long until some enterprising hacker messes with the Unified Registry?
Re: Re:
Like the entity which created it? Oh, you must mean some other hacker.
If only the KGB could have outsourced censorship--
By letting the IP maximalists have their way, Putin is getting free research on new ways to block people’s access to politically undesirable content.
Re: If only the KGB could have outsourced censorship--
You are getting it – Copyright is corporate sponsored censorship.
There’s a list of what Russia is blocking at https://api.reserve-rbl.ru/api/current which runs about eighteen megabytes (so don’t try to open this directly in your browser, it’s too large).
The régime is prone to add sites to that list for any reason or no reason; one of my sites is listed because a user made a joke about a fictional cartoon character being gay, for instance.
So basically...
Russia is playing Whac-a-Mole with matryoshka dolls?
How many Russian readers are here? How many comments are Russian
This place really sounds like Russian propaganda.
Re: How many Russian readers are here? How many comments are Rus
Nyet comrade, only loyal folks of great united states and free world.
Re: How many Russian readers are here? How many comments are Rus
An article critical of Russian governmental actions sounds like Russian propaganda? What?
Russia care about piracy?.
I think Russia not care about piracy, with sanction from US and EU why help them? I think real reason is russia want control political content and ideas people can share.