Russian Government Starts Fight Against Piracy-Enabling Software

• Russia's parliament decided this week to back up a movement against piracy.
• The country plans on investing into curbing the availability of pirated files online. Managers of piracy-enabling software must remove pirated content if they don't want to be shut down.
• The work is challenging because of the nature of applications. 

Despite the popularity of legal streaming sites, the battle against illegal streaming and sharing of pirated works goes on. This week Russia took a definitive step to clamp down on this problem by writing a draft of legislation that will hopefully help fight the problem. The draft, which was adopted by the Russian Duma, focuses on software applications used for the sharing of these pirated files. The Duma is the lower house of the Russian parliament. This process is still in its early stages but it's clear the country aims to fight this on a large scale.

Why does the draft focus on software applications? Because these are the tools people use to share illegal content. An application such as Kodi itself may be legal and designed to share copyrighted works the correct way. Unfortunately, others manipulate these platforms to share their pirated works.

Russia's approach involves searching for unwanted content and identifying which software application it's shared on. Authorities will then contact the owners of the application. Under the new legislation, they have the responsibility to then remove the content. If they fail to do so, the new laws can force ISPs to block those applications. This sounds easy but because applications are much more difficult to pin down than a website, it will require lots of manpower, funding, and resources.

Russia isn't the only country who prioritizes the fight against piracy. The UK also released a report earlier this month. While legal sites stay popular, statistics show 15% of UK internet browsers stream content that doesn't abide by copyright laws. It also mentions the impact piracy has on large corporations. The number of applications that enable you to save YouTube content grew by 141.3% from 2014 to 2016. This only shows how it affects one platform, while there are many more. What will governments do to counter this problem?

If you have any ideas we would like to hear about it in the comments below. To get instant tech updates, follow TechNadu’s Facebook page, and Twitter handle.