The Ministry of Culture of Russia remains to be a consistent opponent of any movements towards “legalization of piracy”. Earlier in March 2023 the Ministry announced that they are working on legislative draft to strengthen responsibility for distribution of unlicensed copies of movies.

The industry of movie theatres in Russia faced unprecedented pressure in recent years: the industry survived COVID lockdowns in 2020, and started to recover in 2021, but then the Spring 2022 and withdrawal of major western film distributor shocked the market. First it seemed to be “the last straw”, but surprisingly only less than 10% of movie theatres ceased business in 2022.

Movie theatres lost more than half of their turnover without Hollywood blockbusters, and filled their schedules with old Russian movies, TV-series, sports programs, and… pirated copies of Hollywood movies. The last part of content was distributed in small movie theaters, and in most cases as “theatrical trailers” before the main licensed piece (which could be some short motion picture).

There are a lot of loud voices which advocate “legalization of piracy” in relation to copyrighted objects owned by rights holders from “unfriendly countries”. More moderate speakers suggest to consider a possibility to implement a “procedure of compulsory licensing for entertainment content from unfriendly countries”. The latter approach has been already implemented in Belarus, and some members of Russian parliament speaks for the same measures in Russia.

However, the Ministry of Culture holds to its previous decision and doesn’t want to make steps toward “legalized piracy” or “compulsory licensing” of copyrighted objects. Such an approach is reasonable, considering corrosive influence of de-facto legalized piracy to the whole system of IP rights, and possibility of future renewal of relations between major film distributors and Russian cinema theatres.