The main reasons for blocking groups and communities on VKontakte

How to ban a public

The method of blocking depends on what role you play in the group.

For the user

First, let's look at how to block a group on VK if you are not an admin. When you are just a member of the community or a third-party user, you can try to provoke a similar action from the administration of the social network. To do this, you need to file complaints about the public.

It is advisable to find material published by the community that violates the site rules;
Above this entry on the right (if there is no one that matches the parameters, you can select a more or less suitable one) there is a “More” button (just an arrow). Click on it and click “Complain”. Next, you should select a reason that matches the reason for the complaint. For example, “Unoriginal content”;
A significant advantage will be the mass filing of complaints, so you can do this from different accounts or ask friends.

You can try to submit a separate detailed complaint to technical support, where you will describe in detail how the public harms users.

Another, not the most honest, method of blocking a VKontakte group if you are not an administrator associated with complaints is to post content that violates the rules in the public (if access is open or the post is approved by the administrator). Then write a feedback indicating this publication. Naturally, no one canceled caution; it is advisable to do this from a fake account.

The above instructions were for PC. Next, let's try to block someone else's group in contact from the phone. And here the algorithm of actions will be the same, since the application interface allows you to complain about materials.

Administrator

Now we’ll help you block a community on VK if you are a leader and have decided that for some reason it’s time to get rid of it in a radical way (although deleting a community is easier and more effective). Or you just became an administrator and want to implement your plans in a short time. The methods are:

fill a public page with materials that contradict the rules of the social network;
complain from your page or ask friends.

The main thing is not to be too zealous and violate the laws of the Russian Federation (call for violence, extremism, etc.). An action contrary to the policy of this site is sufficient.

You can do the same from your phone if you have access to the manager’s page. You need to act in the same way.

What should I do to prevent the group from being blocked?

Here are some simple rules:

Do not try to attract people to the group through private messages and do not write comments advertising your group. This is called “spam” and always leads to blocking!
Do not order cheating of participants - blocking of the group is guaranteed!
Read here how you can and cannot promote a group: How to promote a group, public VKontakte.
Appoint only those you can definitely trust as administrators!
Both you and every administrator must protect your personal page well from hacking. When a group was hacked, it means one of the administrators was hacked - that’s the only way! Read VKontakte Security Measures.
Don't trust strangers who offer to help you do something in a group or involve people!
Check the advertisements you are going to place in the group. If it could be a scam, don't risk it - the group may be blocked!
Make your group interesting, and people will flock to you! Believe me, they can watch all sorts of nonsense in other places (especially if you are simply copying other people’s nonsense).

Possible reasons for ban

It will be useful to know why a VKontakte group can be blocked. There are a number of rules, the violation of which leads to such a situation. They are divided into two sections:

prohibited content, here are combined court decisions, violations of the laws of the Russian Federation, and appeals from copyright holders;
dubious methods of public promotion, which include changing the thematic focus, cheating friends and subscribers in the group, spam, violations during competitions.

They can also block a group on VK for insulting a person. More precisely, for violation of user rights, a potential threat to his safety, according to the administration. This point is enshrined in the rules of the social network.

How to get out of a ban

The situation when a public site is banned is catastrophic for the admin. Many are in a panic asking the question: the VKontakte group was blocked, what should I do? Of course, everyone can guess what caused this situation. And it should be eliminated. For example, delete posts that violate rules, laws, or refuse aggressive promotion.

More information on how to unblock a VKontakte community group:

go to the manager’s page;
in addition to the ban notification, there will be a “contact Support” button;
By clicking on it you should contact the site administration.

Usually the decision is not final and, perhaps, it will be possible to achieve a decision in which, under certain conditions, the ban will be lifted from the public.

By the way, in this regard, communities are more fortunate. Owners of regular accounts will have to try very hard to unblock the page.

How to enter a blocked VKontakte group has already been mentioned above - only through the admin profile. But you can only send a request from the full version of the site, from a PC.

A.S. Kuzmina, Master of Information Technology and Intellectual Property Law, National Research University Higher School of Economics, senior lawyer at Semenov&Pevzner

"Journal of the Intellectual Rights Court", No. 2 (28), June 2020, p. 75-83

The problem of online piracy in Russia remains virtually unresolved. In April 2021, Russia was again included in the list of countries that provide a controversial level of protection to intellectual property and require certain changes and improvements (Priority Watch List of the Special 301 Report, prepared by the US Trade Representative). Many pirated services operated from Russia are often available all over the world and thus cause great damage to the industry.

Despite this, Russia is taking important steps to develop provisions for the protection of copyright and related rights objects online and the fight against illegal resources. A package of amendments to the anti-piracy law allowed copyright holders to block the largest pirated resources. In practice, these measures are quite effective in combating traffic to pirated sites - as a rule, traffic to a blocked site decreases by 50-90% within 1-2 months after the court decision comes into force. In addition, piracy rates have decreased by almost 27% in 2021.

However, copyright holders often face the problem of illegally bypassing judicial blocking using various methods. The infringing site has the opportunity to change the domain name while actually maintaining the IP address and other significant technical parameters. Creating mirror copies, moving a website to a new domain, enabling automatic redirection, posting ways to bypass blocking on social networks, encouraging users to use pirated services - all this can be classified as ways to bypass judicial blocking.

From a legal point of view, the problem is that copyright holders are often limited in their ability to resort to broader measures to limit access to illegal resources; for example, as soon as a pirated site moves to a domain with a similar name, the copyright holder will no longer be able to obtain a court decision to permanently restrict access to the site for copyright infringement. Another consequence of this problem is the inability to block subsequent mirrors of the pirated resource.

Unfortunately, the current Russian legislation does not have a mechanism for promptly suppressing the activities of pirate sites that illegally bypass blocking before the applicant receives a second court decision against the same domain.

First, we should describe the procedure for restricting access to sites on the Internet information and telecommunications network for violation of copyright and (or) related rights.

Permanent blocking of sites: procedural aspects

In Russia, after Federal Law No. 187-FZ came into force, film rights holders now have the opportunity to restrict access to illegal material through the Moscow City Court and Roskomnadzor. Based on Art. 144.1 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation, within 24 hours after filing the application of the copyright holder, the Moscow City Court considers and takes preliminary interim measures, and Roskomnadzor implements this court ruling.

In accordance with paragraph 3 of Art. 15.2 of the Federal Law of July 27, 2006 No. 149-FZ “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” (Information Law), the basis for blocking a resource is the application of the copyright holder to Roskomnadzor to take measures to limit access to a resource distributing materials in violation exclusive rights. In this case, the application must be accompanied by documents confirming the applicant’s rights to the object of exclusive rights and the fact of use of the corresponding object of copyright or related rights on the Internet.

Roskomnadzor, in turn, after receiving a notification from the copyright holder and a court ruling to take preliminary interim measures, determines the hosting provider and sends a notification indicating the name of the disputed work. The hosting provider is required to notify the site owner of the need to remove illegal content within one business day. If the illegal content is not removed, the hosting provider is obliged to restrict access to the corresponding resource. If within three working days this content is also not deleted, Roskomnadzor takes measures to block the information resource at the level of telecom operators by entering information about the network address, domain name and URL into a special register (NAP Register), on the basis of which the operator must restrict access either to illegal information or, if impossible, to the entire resource as a whole. In case of cancellation of a court ruling or decision, Roskomnadzor notifies the hosting provider and telecom operators of the cancellation of measures to restrict access to the resource.

In 2015, the anti-piracy law extended to other objects of copyright and related rights, except for rights to photographic works and works obtained by methods similar to photography, and also provided for the possibility of permanent blocking of sites that repeatedly violate the copyright or related rights of copyright holders.

So, according to paragraph 3 of Art. 26 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation, in the event that the Moscow City Court considers a case in which proceedings were initiated at the plaintiff’s claim after the entry into force of a decision made by the same court in favor of the same plaintiff in another case on the protection of copyright and (or) related rights on the Internet, the Moscow City Court allows the issue of permanently restricting access to a site on which information containing objects of copyright and (or) related rights, or information necessary to obtain them using information and telecommunication networks, including the Internet, has been repeatedly and unlawfully posted. The procedure for restricting access to the site on an ongoing basis is regulated by Art. 15.6 of the Information Law.

A few caveats need to be made here.

Firstly, a site that is permanently restricted cannot be unblocked, and clause 2 of Art. 15.6 of the Information Law does not provide for any exceptions. Restrictions on access to the site can only be lifted if such a court decision is overturned by a higher court.

Secondly, restricting access to a site on an ongoing basis is a right, and not an obligation, of the Moscow City Court, and therefore the court can potentially freely classify a particular resource as subject to blocking or not. In practice, one court decision against the same domain name that has entered into force is enough for the court to satisfy the applicant’s demands to restrict access to the site on a permanent basis.

Thirdly, the Moscow City Court does not indicate a method for restricting access to the site either in the ruling on the adoption of preliminary interim measures or in the final decision, only prescribing the wording “to oblige the site hosting provider, Roskomnadzor and other persons to stop creating technical conditions ensuring placement, distribution and other use of an object on the site." Providers can themselves determine ways to restrict access to content, and the Moscow City Court does not specify such methods, which is similar to the practice of European courts.

The list of methods for restricting access to the site is established by Roskomnadzor Order No. 249 dated December 14, 2021 and was developed for telecom operators who block: 1) blocking by URL (Uniform Resource Locator); 2) blocking by IP address; 3) blocking by domain (DNS). At the same time, Roskomnadzor may recommend that telecom operators use one or another method of restricting access. Other methods of restricting access are expressly prohibited.

It should be noted that this procedure is universal, that is, it is used to limit access to any information in the information and telecommunications network, including limiting access to pirated resources.

For failure to comply with the requirements to restrict access in the prescribed manner, telecom operators may be held administratively liable (Article 13.34 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) in the form of a fine of up to 100,000 rubles, and systematic violations may lead to the revocation of the license for communication services and a ban on operating as an operator communications.

Restriction of access to copies of blocked sites (“mirrors”) is carried out exclusively on an administrative basis by the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation (Ministry of Communications).

The term “mirror” is not mentioned in the Information Law. However, Art. 15.6-1 of the Information Law uses the term “copy of a blocked site,” that is, “a site that is confusingly similar to an Internet site, access to which is limited by decision of the Moscow City Court due to the repeated and unlawful placement of information containing copyrighted and (or) related rights, or information necessary to obtain them using the information and telecommunications network, including the Internet.”

The procedure for recognizing a site as a “copy of a blocked site” is established by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1225 of October 7, 2017. According to this procedure, a site is recognized as a copy by an expert of the Ministry of Communications based on one or more criteria:

—

general signs of external similarity between a copy of a blocked site and the site itself (template, color scheme, arrangement of elements);

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the similarity of the domain names of the copy of the blocked site and the site itself;

—

the similarity of the names of the copy of the blocked site and the site itself;

—

coincidence of information placed on a copy of the blocked site and the site itself containing objects of copyright and (or) related rights, or information necessary to obtain them using information and telecommunication networks (in whole or in part);

—

matching user accounts (accounts) of the copy of the site itself and the blocked site, necessary for authentication and providing access to their personal data and settings;

—

signs of technical interaction between a copy of a blocked site and the site itself, including automatic redirection of users from a blocked site, synchronization of the position index of a copy of a blocked site and a blocked site in search results, use of one management system, reservation of names on a network address;

—

coincidence of contact information for the administrators of the copy of the blocked site and the blocked site.

This list is open, and the criteria are quite flexible - potentially, not only a classic “mirror”, for example, a site with redirection, but also sites affiliated with the original domain (operating under the same logo, similar in design, content or administrator contacts). Mirrors are blocked using the same technical principles as the original sites.

Blocking sites for copyright infringement: EU experience

The most notable is the European experience of restricting access to websites for violating exclusive rights, which is now rapidly developing towards a rather flexible and effective approach.

In the European Union, at the directive level, it is possible to oblige telecom operators (Internet Service Providers (ISPs)) to prevent violations of exclusive rights in accordance with national law (Article 12 of the E-Commerce Directive). According to Article 18 of the Electronic Commerce Directive , the copyright holder may obtain a court order (including interim measures) aimed at stopping the infringement and preventing further infringement of the legitimate interests of third parties.However, such an order should not impose on the provider an obligation to monitor the information that the provider transmits or stores, or an obligation to actively seek facts or circumstances indicating illegal activity related to the use of the provider’s services (Article 15 of the Directive).

In practice, restricting access to resources is implemented when the provider against whom the decision has been made undertakes to block access to sites, as well as other affiliated domains or IP addresses created subsequently. Sometimes such court decisions are temporary in nature, that is, they establish the obligations of providers for a certain period, and then look at the effectiveness of blocking (as a rule, this applies to live broadcasts of sporting events). This type of restriction of access to websites for violating exclusive rights is called “dynamic blocking” and is often used in the practice of European courts or administrative bodies with some criteria and reservations, which will be discussed in more detail.

In accordance with Art. 8(3) of Directive 2001/29 Member States may impose an obligation on providers to take action to suppress or prevent copyright infringement, including removing illegal information or preventing access to it. In accordance with Art. 3 of Directive 2004/48 such measures must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive; must be applied in such a way as to avoid creating barriers to legitimate trade, and must include checks and balances to prevent the abuse of such measures.

The legality of restricting access to websites by the European Court was examined in detail in the case UPC Telekabel Wien v Constantin Film Verleih GmbH, in which the website kino.to provided the opportunity to watch films online. The plaintiff appealed to the Vienna court demanding that the Internet provider limit access to this site for its users. Based on paragraph 1a of Art. 81 of the Austrian Copyright and Related Rights Act, the court ordered to limit access to the kino.to website, block it by IP address and domain, and also limit access to other IP addresses of the kino.to website that may be known to the provider.

The provider challenged this decision in the appellate court, which overturned the decision regarding the prescription of specific methods of restricting access to the site, noting that the access provider may be obliged to restrict access to the site only if it independently chooses the method of restriction.

However, the provider also did not agree with this decision and filed a complaint with the Supreme Court of Austria. In the complaint, he indicated that the court of first instance did not prove that the provider’s services were used for copyright infringement, and also that the connection between the provider and the owners of the kino.to website was not proven. In addition, he noted that measures aimed at restricting access to the site would be too costly and ineffective. The Austrian Supreme Court sent a request for clarification to the European Court of Justice (CJEU) on the following issues: whether the court has the power to oblige the access provider to take measures to restrict access to the site and whether it would be legal to restrict access to the site to the violator.

The CJEU has indicated that a court order to restrict access to a site can even be made to prevent future infringements. In addition, the CJEU indicated that restriction of access to a site must be considered separately from the issue of liability of the access provider and that an order to restrict access to a site can be made even if the provider cannot be held liable for infringement of exclusive rights. This means that the copyright holder does not need to repeatedly prove the fact of violation of his rights by users.

Regarding the issue of the legality of restricting access from the point of view of the rights of users and the provider, the court indicated that restricting access to a site may be justified if such a measure maintains a fair balance between the protection of exclusive rights and the right of users to access information. In particular, in each individual case, courts must check whether restricting access to the offending site will lead to blocking of lawful information, while restricting access must be accompanied by the right of users to defend their interests in court when restricting access to Internet resources.

Regarding the rights of providers, the court indicated that when imposing measures on a provider, the courts must give the latter a choice of how to restrict access to the site, which the provider can choose independently in accordance with the availability of technology and means. Therefore, if the provider, in accordance with its capabilities, takes specific measures sufficient to restrict access to the site, such measures must be considered sufficient and justified in the context of European law.

Thus, as the practice of the CJEU shows, the obligation to restrict access to sites can be assigned to the access provider, even to prevent violations in the future, while such a restriction will be considered legal and justified if it does not affect the rights of users to lawful access to information, and such measures restrict access only to illegal content.

For a detailed consideration of the validity and legality of blocking sites from the point of view of user rights, it is also necessary to refer to the case Neij and Sunde Kolmisoppi v Sweden, considered by the ECHR.

The administrators of the famous file-sharing pirate The Pirate Bay were found guilty by a Swedish court of copyright infringement, for which the administrators filed a complaint with the ECHR on the basis that such a criminal charge violates the freedom to receive and disseminate information in accordance with Art. 10 European Convention on Human Rights. The ECHR, in turn, pointed out three conditions that must be met in order to legally restrict the right to access information. Firstly, such a restriction must be provided for by law; secondly, the restriction must be aimed at achieving a legitimate aim; thirdly, the restriction must be necessary to achieve such an aim in a democratic society. In this case, the ECHR determined that restricting access to information pursues a legitimate goal - the protection of copyright, that is, the protection of the rights of third parties in the context of Art. 10 of the Convention. Regarding the third condition, the ECtHR also considered that copyright protection is a necessity. Thus, in this case, the ECtHR came to the conclusion that bringing website administrators to criminal liability does not contradict Art. 10 of the Convention and does not violate the right to information.

As for the national courts of EU member states, in practice their decisions may differ, in particular on issues of validity, legality and effectiveness of restricting access to sites. In France, the prevailing view among the courts is that providers can be required to prevent even the re-emergence of illegal content for which the provider has already received notification from the copyright holder. For example, in the case of Andre Rau v Google and Aufeminin.com, the Paris Court of Appeal stated that once a provider has been notified by the copyright holder of an infringement, it is obliged to implement any technical means available to it to prevent future infringements.

A recent striking example of judicial practice that implemented dynamic blocking of sites was the decision of the Swedish court in the case of AB Svensk Filmindustri v Telia Sverige AB against the pirate resources The Pirate Bay, Byafilm, Fmovies. In this judgment, the court, with reference to the practice of the CJEU in similar cases (March 27, 2014, C-314/12 UPC Telekabel Wien, July 7, 2021, C-494/15 Tommy Hilfiger), justified the restriction of access to sites with points of view of efficiency, legality and validity, including against sites that were not available to users at the time of the consideration of the case, but could become available in the future. In addition, in this case, the Swedish court applied the principles of dynamic blocking of resources, pointing out the possibility, under this court decision, to limit access to resources not directly named in the plaintiff’s application (entire sites or URLs), which are used or will be used exclusively or primarily to bypass the blocking of the main pirate resource.

In other European countries, courts apply similar principles for restricting access to websites for violations of exclusive rights. Thus, in the UK, the possibility of a High Court injunction against a service provider if the service provider has actual knowledge that its services are being used to infringe copyright is established in Art. 97A Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 UK. The procedure for restricting access to websites for violation of exclusive rights in the UK is quite fast; the copyright holder’s application is considered without calling the parties to the case (from 1 to 3 months). It is enough for the court to recognize that taking measures to restrict access to the site will be sufficient and proportionate

The most famous case in which the dynamic blocking approach was applied by the English court was Twentieth Century Fox v British Telecommunications (BT) PLC, where the High Court found that an order restricting access to a website could be issued even if the provider did not found guilty of copyright infringement and such a court order would not amount to a general duty to monitor traffic; such an order is too narrow and proportionate enough to limit the right to freedom of information.

In this case, the injunctive relief was directed at IP addresses and URLs and required the ISP to use the ISP's existing technology to monitor and remove content. It should also be noted that the court, considering the issue of the actual knowledge of the access provider that its services are used for copyright infringement, indicated that Art. 97A Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 does not require the provider to have knowledge of a specific infringement or user who has committed an infringement; it is sufficient if the provider has knowledge that its services are being used to infringe copyright. As a result, the court ordered British Telecom to change the settings of the website access restriction system it uses (Cleanfeed) in order to block access to the site to the violator.

In some European countries, there is an administrative procedure for restricting access to sites that violate exclusive rights. Thus, in Italy, applications from copyright holders to restrict access to sites for violations of exclusive rights are considered by the state body AGCOM (Italian Authority for Communications). Within 35 days, AGCOM issues an order to providers to limit access to pirated resources, and if the resource contains a large amount of illegal content or AGCOM has already issued an order against such a site, then applications from copyright holders can be considered under an expedited procedure within 12 days. In the case where the server hosting the illegal content is located in Italy, AGCOM directly orders the hosting provider to remove the content and take measures against its re-hosting. If the server is located outside Italy, AGCOM only has the right to oblige Italian telecom operators to restrict access to an entire domain, an IP address or a specific URL. AGCOM also maintains a registry of blocked sites, which allows telecom operators to block access to pirated sites.

The Italian procedure for restricting access to websites is in some aspects similar to the Russian one. However, AGCOM also applies the principles of dynamic blocking of sites - when the copyright holder has received an order from AGCOM to restrict access to the entire site (or specific content), the copyright holder must only notify AGCOM about new pirated domains, IP addresses or another method of bypassing the blocking, and AGCOM obliges providers to block access to them.

The administrative procedure for blocking sites does not restrict copyright holders from applying to the national court (including for interim measures), which also applies the dynamic blocking procedure.

So, in European countries, both EU courts and national courts and government bodies support a fairly logical dynamic principle of restricting access to sites that repeatedly violate exclusive rights, which consists of a special judicial (sometimes administrative) procedure for issuing orders to providers and (or) other information intermediaries to restrict access to both the original domain names specified in the copyright holder's application and other domain names that are not mentioned in the application, but are used exclusively or primarily to bypass the blocking of the original domain name.

Problems of judicial blocking a la russe

Russian anti-piracy law is to a certain extent unique in the context of the mandatory receipt of two court decisions against the same domain name. Neither the courts nor the law use a mechanism for dynamically blocking sites. The procedure for restricting access to websites for violations of exclusive rights is quite formalized, which is generally characteristic of the Russian legal field. Perhaps the only mechanism similar to dynamic blocking of sites in the Russian anti-piracy law is an extrajudicial procedure for restricting access to “mirror” sites.

Based on the reviewed practice of foreign courts and the practice of applying the anti-piracy law in Russia, we can highlight the following current shortcomings of the Russian mechanism for restricting access to sites.

The scope of application of the law is limited, since the technical features of domain names, which can change to a new domain at any time, are not always taken into account, which makes the process of restricting access to sites that repeatedly and systematically violate exclusive rights, circumventing court orders, becomes difficult for copyright holders; as a result, copyright holders may be deprived of the opportunity to protect their exclusive rights.

The procedure for blocking “mirrors” occurs out of court and is fully regulated by law; the court has no right to clarify or change this mechanism.

The procedure for blocking “mirrors” becomes available to copyright holders only after going to court twice and is initiated at the request of the copyright holder of the Ministry of Communications, and is mandatory for all local providers.

Methods of bypassing judicial blocking, such as proxy services, VPN, third-level domains, sites that were previously available, but are not available to users at the time the copyright holder applies with an application or at the time of its consideration, are not covered by this procedure.

For comparison, the practice of European courts allows us to highlight the following positive features of the dynamic blocking mechanism.

The ability to restrict access to a specific resource (entire site or specific URL) on a permanent or long-term basis based on only one application to the court.

Resources not directly named in the copyright holder's statement, which are used exclusively or primarily to bypass the blocking of the main pirated resource, can also be blocked on the basis of the same judicial act, for example: classic “mirrors”, proxy services, VPN services, a new affiliated resource with a blocked pirated site or URL, other resources that simplify access to a blocked site or allow you to otherwise bypass the blocking).

The procedure for implementing dynamic blocking is determined by the court, but in fact this procedure is implemented through direct communication regulated by the court between the copyright holder and the provider.

A court order to restrict access to a site can even be extended to sites that are not accessible to users at the time the case is considered, but may potentially be accessible in the future.

The procedure for sending information about new resources and limiting access to them and the response time are clearly regulated in a court order.

Thus, at the moment, dynamic blocking of sites seems to be a comprehensive solution to the procedural problems of the anti-piracy law, the essence of which, in a general sense, is to establish a special procedure for the obligation of providers or other information intermediaries to block access to both original domain names and (or) URLs directly named in a court decision, as well as other domain names and (or) URLs, which, although not directly mentioned in the statement of the copyright holder, are used exclusively or primarily to bypass the blocking of the original domain name and (or) URL.

Turning to the concept of dynamic blocking of resources potentially allows courts to consider cases of restricting access to sites much more widely and effectively both from the point of view of copyright holders, who will have more opportunities to protect their exclusive rights, and information intermediaries (hosting providers, telecom operators or owners resources) that will not be required to implement and maintain costly technical measures and equipment to restrict access to illegal resources.

In any case, the implementation of dynamic blocking in the Russian legal framework will require some legislative changes. At the same time, taking into account the fact that the courts already have an established fairly flexible right (and not an obligation) to consider the issue of permanently restricting access to sites, in accordance with paragraph 3 of Art. 26 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation, radical changes to the current procedure will not be required. For example, it is proposed to expand the powers of the Moscow City Court under clause 3 of Art. 26 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation on consideration of the issue of restricting access to sites at the stage of the copyright holder’s first appeal to the court in the case of a transfer of a domain to a new one (redirect, creation of a “mirror”) established by the court, independent qualification by the court of a “mirror”, a third-level domain and another method of bypassing the blocking .

At the same time, if we look at the technical side of restricting access in the light of possible amendments to the anti-piracy law aimed at implementing the institution of dynamic blocking of resources, it can be argued that no special changes are required at the technical level - Roskomnadzor will also refer to regulations on restricting access to sites NAP registry, and coordinate this activity; for telecom operators, these amendments will not entail additional costs.

1 See: URL: https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2019_Special_301_Report.pdf

2 See: URL: https://tass.ru/ekonomika/7065109

3 Roskomnadzor itself provides providers with information about the site’s IP address, URL and domain names.

4 UPC Telekabel Wien v Constantin Film Verleih GmbH, ECJ case C314/12, March 27, 2014.

5 Order of Roskomnadzor dated December 14, 2021 No. 249 “On approval of requirements for methods (methods) of restricting access to information resources, as well as requirements for posted information on restricting access to information resources.”

6 Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of October 7, 2021 No. 1225 “On approval of the rules for making a reasoned decision to recognize a site on the Internet information and telecommunications network as a copy of a blocked site.”

7 Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (Directive on electronic commerce).

8 Such a ban on general monitoring of information was justified from the standpoint of general principles of freedom of speech, the prohibition of censorship, as well as practical considerations. Moreover, such a prohibition is supported by the provisions of Art. 56 Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) on the freedom of movement of information society services between member countries. Thus, monitoring responsibilities are not coordinated with the fundamental principles of European law. In addition, such responsibilities will entail significant costs for the implementation and maintenance of technical monitoring equipment.

9 Football Association Premier League Ltd v British Telecommunications Plc & Ors [2018] EWHC 1828

10 Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society.

11 Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

12 UPC Telekabel Wien v Constantin Film Verleih GmbH, ECJ case C314/12, March 27, 2014.

13 Neij and Sunde Kolmisopp v Sweden (dec.) – 403977/12. Decision 19.2.2013

14 Andre Rau v. Google & Au feminine.com, Paris Court of Appeals, Feb. 5, 2011 (affirming TGI Paris 3e ch. 2nd section). October 09, 2009.

15 Swedish Patent and Market Court judgment #PMT 7562-18.

16 See: URL: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents

17 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp v British Telecommunications Plc : 28 July 2008 : [2011] EWHC 1981 (Ch) : [2011] RPC

18 Regulation on copyright enforcement in electronic communications networks dated April 9, 2003 #70.

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