At the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation.
In this case, Kontent I Pravo claimed that its rights to copyright objects, uploaded by third parties on the website that was hosted on servers provided by Masterhost, were violated. Masterhost argued that it only provided web hosting services and thus should not be liable for mere storage and transmission of the content. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Masterhost reasoning that a provider should not be liable if it does not initiate the transmission or modify the content.
(1) Article 1253.1 of the Civil Code, introduced by Federal Law No. 187-FZ of July 2, 2013, defines “information intermediary” as “an entity that carries out the transmission of content through information and telecommunication networks, including on the Internet”, “an entity that enables the publication of content, or information required to access such content through information and telecommunication networks”, or “an entity that enables access to the content through such information and telecommunication networks”. It is still to be seen whether information location tools, i.e. search engines, fall under the statutory definition of “information intermediary” too. (2) Information intermediaries are exempted from liability for IP infringement subject to the following conditions: Transmission: (a) did not initiate the...
(1) Article 17 of the Law establishes general principles of intermediary liability for distribution of illegal information (other than IP) by exempting intermediaries from civil liability subject to the following conditions: Transmission: did not modify the content while providing services. Hosting and enabling access: could not know that the distribution of information was illegal. (2) Hosting provider, telecom operator and web site owner are not liable to right holders and users for restricting access to information, if such restriction was implemented in accordance with this law.
Article 29. 1. Everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of ideas and speech. 2. The propaganda or agitation instigating social, racial, national or religious hatred and strife shall not be allowed. The propaganda of social, racial, national, religious or linguistic supremacy shall be banned. 3. No one may be forced to express his views and convictions or to reject them. 4. Everyone shall have the right to freely look for, receive, transmit, produce and distribute information by any legal way. The list of data comprising state secrets shall be determined by a federal law. 5. The freedom of mass communication shall be guaranteed. Censorship shall be banned.
(1) The law requires that "mass media" businesses be registered with the applicable governmental authority. The registration process is cumbersome and enables the government to exert direct and indirect pressure on a media outlet. Moreover, amendments to the law adopted in October 2014 limit non-Russian ownership and control, direct or indirect, of Russian mass media to no more than 20%. (2) Although it does not specifically include Internet service providers in the list of mass media businesses, there are some Internet businesses that were required to register. On the other hand, in 2014, the General Prosecutor's Office opined that Yandex.News (local news aggregator service) is not a mass media and is not required to be registered as such. (3) The law also allows websites to register on a voluntary basis as mass media...
The Roskomnadzor is an administrative body competent to request telecoms operators to block access to website featuring content that violate miscellaneous pieces of legislation (see above) and competent to keep a special registry ("blacklist") where to add website that violate the law.