The Priority Plan – Green Light For Software Piracy
A document titled “Priority Action Plan for Ensuring the Development of the Russian Economy in the Conditions of External Sanctions Pressure” lays out just some of the measures under consideration. It’s the work of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia and contains several measures that if adopted, will affect copyright, patent and trademark owners that act against Russia’s interests.
An item listed as point 6.7.3 attempts to deal with the problem of foreign companies revoking or refusing to issue software licenses. Under the law as it stands, unlicensed software is illegal but if the new measures are passed, in some cases software piracy will become non-punishable.
“Cancellation of liability for the use of software (SW) unlicensed in the Russian Federation, owned by a copyright holder from countries that have supported the sanctions,” the proposed measure reads.
The proposal covers both civil and criminal liability (Code of Administrative Offenses and the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and indicates that while sanctions are in place, piracy of software for which there are no Russian alternatives would be permissible.
Quite how this could deal with services accessed via the cloud is unclear but the overall aim is to smooth Russia’s transition from reliance on foreign companies’ products to solutions developed inside the country. Given the scale of that undertaking, software piracy is likely to become the norm for years to come.