Russian Civil Law Changed By Wikimedia

An anonymous reader writes "Changes to the Russian Civil Code, which include the recognition of open licenses, the right for libraries to generate digital copies of certain works, were now signed by the Russian President and come into force on October 1st. According to Wikimedia-RU member Linar Khalitov, 'these changes are a result of a lot of hard work on behalf of Wikimedia-RU ... proposing, discussing and defending amendments to the Code.'" The changes are pretty major: licenses no longer require a written contract to be enforced, and published works can no longer be retracted. The two combine to give Wikipedia RU authors stronger author rights. Pictures of architectural objects can be used freely without the permission of the architect, which will allow many images that were pulled from the Wikimedia Commons to return, and new projects to add pictures of monuments to go forward.

Well done, Vladimir!

[Hognoxious]

This more than makes up for invading a neighboring country - I mean another one - and nearly starting WW3!

Re: Well done, Vladimir!

[lgw]

Russia is a regional power. They will certainly start a war, but it would take insanity on our part that matches or exceeds Putin's to turn it into a world war.

Re: Well done, Vladimir!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Russia is a regional power.

So was Austria-Hungary...

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[DNS-and-BIND]

And we will completely fail to notice that Russia, unlike Austria-Hungary, lacks a huge neighbor with a professional military that is 100% willing to go to war on her behalf. Nope, good enough for people who got Cs in history!

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[unixisc]

Okay, China may not go to war for Russia, but is there anything major that China & Russia differ on today?

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[manu0601]

Russia is able to grant asylum to Snowden, while China wanted him to leave Hong Kong to avoid upsetting the US too much.

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[Hognoxious]

How many nuclear missiles did Austria-Hungary have?

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[LordLimecat]

Plus a whole lot of conviction and leadership that we just dont seem to have. But hey, I hear the administrations convinced Netflix to pull Putin's membership the next time he invades a country, so thats something.

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[Anonymous Coward]

We should codify that only USA and its current allies have right to invade other countries and to decide if popular vote results are correct or not.

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[Jeff Flanagan]

You're coming across like the American far-right. Tyrants appeal to the worst of us.

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[LordLimecat]

Im far-right because Im disappointed with the tepid, half-hearted, laughable response we've given over the invasion of a country that we encouraged to disarm? (Ukraine underwent disarmament in 2005 at the behest of (along with Senator Lugar) senator Obama)

But that wouldnt be the worst of it, if we were just going to be scumbags and say "nuts to you, we dont care what Russia does". No, we decided that we care, but we cant actually back our bravado up with any real consequences, with the result that we now l

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[genepro77]

Just out of curiosity ... which particular quality of us, americans, entitles us to pass judgement and "care" what Russians do in their corner of the world? It would be very much curious to what we would do if we didn't like the behavior of one of our neighbors, like Cuba, for example. We would never dare to invade! Wait...

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[LordLimecat]

At this point it isnt relevant. We announced to the world that we DO care, and have shown an inability to enforce our will: that weakens our position in foreign relations substantially.

Its also pretty weak to justify Russia's bad behavior by pointing out some of ours. Are you aware of the atrocity of the trail of tears? Or that that in no way justifies Hitler's conquest of europe and the holocaust?

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[genepro77]

Who's tears? What this has to do with Hitler? Are you folks are really that brain washed?! Or you still think we are living in a paradise of democracy ? Try this: start saying what you really think and see how fast you will be shut up and will lose your job etc.

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[murdocj]

Try running for president in Russia and spending the rest of your life in jail.

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[LordLimecat]

Do you really not know what the Trail of Tears is?

Try this: start saying what you really think and see how fast you will be shut up and will lose your job etc.

I do. Ive had discussions about this -- and far more controversial-- topics with government coworkers. I still have a job, though basically everyone at my gov't job is aware Im not a big fan of Obama or basically any of his policies.

Are you really so ignorant that you dont see a difference between countries like Russia where you can be imprisoned for criticizing Putin, and the US where criticizing Obama is par for course in the media?

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[davester666]

Yes, it will totally be the west's fault if WW3 starts because of Putin's annexations [already he's looking at east/north Ukraine to "protect" the russian-speaking people there].

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[lgw]

Shall we commit all our military might to protect Ukraine? Domino theory? We're halfway through gutting our military, so it wouldn't be a quick war, and I'm not sure we'd win. Sounds crazy to me.

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[Luckyo]

Doesn't matter. They are our stooges. We will stand by them.

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[radarskiy]

Clearly, the proper US response should be to reclaim British Columbia back to 54 deg 40 min north.

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[Luckyo]

Bad news. Putin is not insane. That is the dumb propaganda line meant for the ignorant or those who like to believe that world is simple, and that anyone who has an opposing point of view can only be "insane".

He's logical leader who believes first and foremost in his national interest. We have a lot of same kind of leaders, through they are generally much weaker and less capable of strategic calculations that Putin. As a result, there's absolutely nothing against someone like Bush starting a world war three

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[lgw]

Dictators don't care about national interest, but personal interest. Nothing about invading Ukraine helps the average citizen (wait, Putin calls them "subjects") of Russia - it's empire building for the boss.

Sane people don't further their personal interest at the cost of the deaths of thousands or millions.

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[Hognoxious]

Agreed. Anything more than a few dozen is just vulgar.

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[Luckyo]

Yet all of the major Western powers are guilty of this. Are we all insane? And when you live in the world full of insane murderers, what good is it to be the only sane person?

As for your strange quip, "subject" is a legal term used to describe those citizens who are subject to laws of the land in certain languages. Russians tend to use very formal language on governmental level. The english term is used in the same way in UK. Essentially you're bitching about a cultural difference, but misattribute it to Pu

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[unixisc]

They are more than regional - they are now the world's #1 power. I'd hardly call a nation capable of causing damage in places as varied as Ukraine, Syria, Tajikistan, China, Korea and Alaska as regional

Re:Well done, Vladimir!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a question of belief. When Russian forces stepped off the leased military bases in Crimea, Ukraine, and also flew in more forces into Crimea, Ukraine, to take control, yes it was an invasion. Crimea was an autonomous region in Ukraine, not a separate country.

Re:Well done, Vladimir!

[H0p313ss]

And Kosovo was an autonomous region in Serbia for hundreds of years. How many bombs did USA and its vassals drop on Yugoslavia to change that?

Unless there have been mass executions of Russian ethnic civilians in Crimea that I've missed, it's not really a fair comparison is it?

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[unixisc]

You are conflating Kosovo w/ Bosnia. Unlike Bosnia, which was a separate republic, Kosovo was an autonomous republic, and an integral part of Serbia, until the US decided to recognize their independence. Nor was there a genocide there, except of Serbs by Albanians. So why is Kosovo entitled to self determination, but not Russia?

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[Hognoxious]

But the people in the region consider themselves Russian and what to associated with Russia, and there was a vote.

A vote in which the two options were "join Russia now" and "join Russia next week".

Of course no independent observers reported any coercion or other irregularities, so it must have been perfectly fair.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[cheesybagel]

Yeah. It only became a puppet state like the Republic of Abkhazia.

Puerto Rico joined the US though.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[unixisc]

1. b.) Crimea's ethnic cleansing happened during the Stalin era, so trying to correct that would make about as much sense as trying to roll back the borders of Islam to Mecca. The whole idea of bringing ex Crimean Taters from Uzbekistan to Crimea is a bad one
2. c.) Far more members reject Kosovo's declaration for various reasons. The legitimacy of their claim is about as much as Crimea's. Also, the West has a double standard - Albanian Muslims in Kosovo have a right to 'self-determination', which includes bul

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[shutdown -p now]

Yes, and Kosovo was also invaded by NATO forces.

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[murdocj]

Yeah, the Serbs were just engaged in "ethnic cleansing". We should have done what most people do when someone is getting mugged, and just looked the other way. Right?

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[mirix]

Kosovo was only made autonomous during communist yugoslavia, so sometime after 1943. I don't remember when exactly.

before that it was always part of serbia, since middle ages. (though all of serbia was under ottoman rule for many years).

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[Hognoxious]

The Crimean parliament asked for Russian support, the Crimean parliament has that authority, that's the point of autonomy

Foreign policy is one of the things that autonomous regions generally don't have power over; if they did, they'd be actual countries.

The Crimean parliament had no more right to call in the Russians than Lincolnshire County Council has to request Norwegian military intervention.

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[dunkelfalke]

Nearly starting what please? The annexation of Crimea was so far bloodless. Compare that to Iraq and Afghanistan.

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[Hognoxious]

The annexation of Crimea was so far bloodless.

Some specific part of NEARLY giving you trouble?

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[dunkelfalke]

Yes, your definition of "nearly".

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[Hognoxious]

Then you should learn the correct one.

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[genepro77]

We don't usually "invade" countries who can fight back ;) Especially Russia, who can even defeat us. All cost considered.

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[unixisc]

Russia has all the real estate in the world to host all software liberators in the world. In fact, all that the Kremlin has to do is outlaw all ownership of all intellectual property, and everybody who violates it in their own countries can move to Russia, where they'd no longer be in violation of their country's law. Russia can then become the world's new fountainhead of knowledge.

Also, maybe RMS could get a home in Chechnya

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[TrueRecord]

Russia did not invade it. Russia has been there for centuries and for the recent decades the Russian fleet has been there in accordance with the intentional treaty between Ukraine and Russian. It would further have been that way if the Ukrainian nationalists had not proposed to ban the Russian language and the Russian people that is a majority in some of the lands. And many people did not what to be associated with the heirs to the Hitler's former Nazist ally which now took power in Kiev. So the Crimea revo

How nice

[cold fjord]

Just think of all the additional territory that legal reform applies to as of today .... and maybe more next month?

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[genepro77]

And the US should be concerned why ? Of course as long as it civil and bloodless.

Vandalism!

[Anonymous Coward]

Their changes will be reverted for not being notable.

Russia has very low rule of law

[sinij]

Russia has very low rule of law, as such if this was ISO spec - they are not following it.

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[Issarlk]

"military action against dictators threatening to sell their oil for something other than dollars"

Fixed that for you.

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[genepro77]

Well, not a fair comparison, given that Crimea was Russian for 2,5 centuries and has a Russian population majority. If Russia dared to behave like us in Iraq or Afganistan the hysteria in the media would be 100 times louder ))

Stronger author rights...

[ackthpt]

So long as they don't run afoul of Mr. Putin's views. Or views of people who believe they may be acting sympathetic to Mr. Putin's views.

It's like a double edged sword, sharper on one side, but blunt on the other.

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[genepro77]

There is no difference between Putin's views and any other national leader who care. The difference here is that Russia, supposedly "defeated" in the Cold War dares to challenge the US and not play along anymore. This the root of all bitching that we enjoy since the beginning of Ukranian crisis.

In Soviet Russia ...

[PPH]

... published works take down you!

Why bother?

[T.E.D.]

It sounds like they went through a lot of effort to make this agreement with Russia. Why on earth someone would do that, when the country doesn't operate under Rule of Law anyway? The current regime has shown time after time that it considers itself bound neither by its own laws, nor its signed treaties. When a company starts to do well, they nationalize it [wikipedia.org] and throw the former owners in jail. When they want some territory, they take it.

If you agree to any of their laws or treaties, they only bind you, not

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[shutdown -p now]

First of all, this was spearheaded largely by the Russian Wikipedia.

Second, while law is "flexible" in Russia, it's nowhere near as bad as you make it sound. Basically, when it gets political, then all bets are off, but otherwise rule of law applies. And even for political cases, they try to make some semblance of due process.

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[T.E.D.]

There's no such thing as almost having Rule of Law. If the laws don't apply to the powerful, then you don't really have laws. Constraining the powerful is what laws are for. The powerful don't need protection.

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[shutdown -p now]

By your definition, no country in the world has rule of law, since for every single one you can find some exception where someone got off.

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[Bite The Pillow]

No worries, mate. I just reverted the change.

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[TrueRecord]

Russia was and still is by far the truest and the strongest ally of the US.
From the very beginning of the US as an independent country till now.
It is Russia that helped the young American country determine its own future when the Civil War broke out between the southern and northern states. Russian ships came to protect the American shores to prevent England and France from the interference with the Civil War.

Also but for Russia you'd have been enslaved by the German Nazis or still at war with them at best.

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[Elky Elk]

You seriously think the Russian navy could have stopped Britain or France?

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[TrueRecord]

It did not matter. Anyway that was a demonstration of force of the county that had before proved its power, good will and obligations of an ally. And it was effective.
What really matters is that the Soviet Russia did defeat the German war machine and its ruthless ideology in 1941-1945. And today's differences pale when compared with those deeds before.

Imo, Russia is the last hope of mankind :-) concerning freedom, privacy, knowledge, peace, children, love, sincerity, the truth and so on :-) I really want Ru