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Copyright Violators to Face Tougher Sentences
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin inked yesterday the bill to amend the RF Criminal Code, toughening punishment for the breach of copyright and related rights. From now own, the pirates could be forced to spend six years in prison and the piracy will be viewed as a heavy crime.
The essence of amendments to the RF Criminal Code is toughening the maximal punishment for the breach of copyright and related rights as well as for violating the rights for trademark or name of the place of the product origin. For the first case, the sentence is extended from five to six years of prison and the six-year imprisonment is introduced instead of the fine of 300,000 rubles for the second case.
Tougher sentences mean intellectual property crimes will be regarded as heavy crimes rather than the mid.-gravity offences, which is today’s practice. The purpose to attain is to improve efficiency of criminal actions taken against pirates, said State Duma’s deputy Alexey Likhachev, who masterminded the amendments.
“Today’s punishment fails to stop criminals,” Likhachev explained. “We are speaking about thousands of percent of shadow profits.” The aftereffect of soft laws was that only 12 people were condemned to imprisonment in 2005 (184 more got suspended sentences) on count of copyright violation and only one person (of nine verdicts overall) faced imprisonment on count of violating the trademark rights or the rights for the name of the place of the product origin. Russia’s Interior Ministry hasn’t provided the figures for 2006 yet.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 11, 2007
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