Russia Wanted To Shut YouTube Down For Piracy

ge7 writes "A recently leaked confidential diplomatic cable reveals Russia's growing interest in shutting down copyright infringing websites. 'Russia's Deputy Minister of Economic Development said that not only do U.S. sites continue to offer pirated Russian movies, but that YouTube and Google should be shut down for not respecting local laws'. The U.S. government has previously attacked torrent and link sites hosted elsewhere in the world, extradited foreign nationals for piracy and provided training on how to shut down piracy websites. 'Voskresenskiy went on to state that, in his opinion, no country in the world is prepared to fight Internet piracy. He argued that all existing laws, including laws in the U.S., are antiquated and do not address new technological trends. As an example, [Voskresenskiy] stated that YouTube and Google (as YouTube's owner) should be shut down because they do not conform to current Russian IPR laws. He admitted that this was not feasible, but continued to emphasize that these entities need to follow local laws, even if the laws are outdated,' the cable adds."

Re:Meanwhile in Russia...

[ge7]

I think the main point here is that U.S. should clean up their own shit first. Like he said "that this was not feasible". U.S. has a long history of attacking Russia and other countries for copyright theft while ignoring that U.S. itself has the same problems. Russia here seems to understand that, U.S. doesn't.

This is stupid

[flibbidyfloo]

Two points:

First, I doubt "Russia" gives a frozen rat's ass about what YouTube does. I'm sure the MPAA or a foreign equivalent is 99% responsible for this.

Second, statements like "entities need to follow local laws" are just plain stupid and wrong. Only LOCAL entities need to follow local laws.
If some kid in Russia downloads an illegal movie, throw him in your gulag. Reductio ad absurdum: If it's against the law in Russia to use car headlights after 11pm, and someone in Finland drives along the border, their headlights spilling onto Russian soil, should they be arrested?

There are reasons we have borders, and a big one is so that "we" don't have to follow "your" stupid laws. No one at Google is forcing anyone in Russia to watch YouTube.