James Delahunty
18 May 2012 17:41
vKontakte loses copyright case appeal.
The earlier ruling had found that vKontakte's peer to peer integration, which allowed users to share all kinds of media files, breached copyright laws in Russia.
The P2P abilities have made vKontakte very popular in the country, providing it with an edge over competitors in the social networking space. The case was brought against vKontakte by the EMI Group, which complained that vKontakte users were sharing their music without authorisation.
"This judgment sends a clear signal to those in Russia that seek to build their businesses on the back of other people's content. We urge vKontakte to take immediate steps to stop its service being used to infringe copyright on a massive scale," said Frances Moore, chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
"Widespread digital piracy is preventing Russia from developing a thriving legitimate digital music sector and this in turn denies Russian artists a chance of success and starves them of investment by producers."
vKontakte is a business that has been valued at between US$1.5 and US$3 billion