Russian social network vKontakte has been a fixture on ‘notorious’ piracy markets lists provided by Western rightsholders for some time now. However, this week the company signed a memorandum of […]
Tag: VKontakte
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vKontakte founder leaves the company (and the country) after being pushed out
Russian social network vKontakte has long been a bugbear for the music industry on piracy grounds, but the company is currently in turmoil for other reasons. Its founder Pavel Durov […]
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Russia’s vKontakte sued by labels for $1.8m and US “six-strikes” snaps into effect
vKontakte, the social network with 88m registered users in Russia and 143m globally, is being sued in three separate cases filed by Sony Music Russia, Universal Music Russia and Warner […]
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vKontakte to be declassified as “rogue site”
Social media platform vKontakte – dubbed “the Facebook of Russia” – is putting measures in place to be declassified as a rogue site by the US Trade Representative
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IFPI calls for copyright crackdown from Russian social network vKontakte
Much of the concern around recent management changes at Russian social network vKontakte have focused on free speech, but the IFPI hopes they may also signify a change in approach to copyright.
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vKontakte facing new label lawsuits over copyright infringement
Russian social network vKontakte may be starting 2014 with a new set of legal problems, following reports late last year that EMI,
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MPAA blows whistle on more pirate sites
The MPAA has listed over two dozen pirate sites that it wants the US government to tackle head on.
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Vkontakte wins label copyright case, plans legal music service
Russian social media site Vkontakte has won a copyright case brought against it by local label Soyuz.
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Russian social network vKontakte gets blocked in Italy
vKontakte continues to provoke the ire of creative industry rightsholders for the filesharing aspects of its service.
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New wave of filesharing sites set to be blocked by UK ISPs
Filesharing sites Torrentz.eu, BitSnoop, ExtraTorrent and FilesTube are set to be blocked by British ISPs from 30 October.
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Anti-piracy firm Muso to monitor vKontakte for copyright infringement
There’s been a lot of speculation this year about Russian social network vKontakte’s plans to tackle copyright infringement on its service, with reports in June that the company was pro-actively removing music from major labels including UMG that had been uploaded by users (Bulletin, 18-Jun-13)
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Russian social network vKontakte removing copyrighted music tracks
Big things are afoot in Russia, where social network vKontakte appears to have started deleting a range of copyrighted tracks uploaded by its users, in response to requests by rightsholders.
Several reports on local news sites (for example here, here and here) note that songs by artists including Lana Del Rey, Justin Bieber, the Rolling Stones, Shakira and Adele are being “removed from public access due to the treatment of owner” (in Google Translate’s words).
This is a big deal, because vKontakte has long been a copyright villain in the eyes of the music industry thanks to the proliferation of user-uploaded tracks on its service.