The draft amendments, developed by deputies Vladimir Bortko, Elena Drapeko and Maria Maksakova-Igenbergs, allowing Internet providers to block sites with pirated content, do not require approval from the government. This follows from the response of the State Duma Legal Department to a request from deputy Pavel Krasheninnikov. The department's employees refer to the Duma's regulations and Article 104 of the Constitution: only those bills whose implementation requires budgetary financing are agreed with the government and relevant departments. And here, budget expenditures are not required.

The draft law on amendments to the law on information was submitted to the State Duma last Thursday. None of the relevant departments, including the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Culture, knew anything about it. Moreover, the ministries, Internet companies and copyright holders had been discussing for several months a completely different bill on the same topic, developed by the Ministry of Culture. The parliamentary draft differs from the draft of the Ministry of Culture in that it allows for the blocking of websites by telecom operators. Vedomosti's sources in several ministries and Internet companies drew attention to the fact that the draft of the Ministry of Culture was not approved by the government and has not yet been submitted to the Duma. The alternative draft, on the contrary, was not approved by the government, but was tacitly approved by the Kremlin.

The Ministry of Communications is preparing amendments to it, which can be introduced in the second reading, says the representative of the ministry, Ekaterina Osadchaya. She did not specify what kind of amendments. The representative of the Ministry of Culture declined to comment, the Ministry of Economic Development did not answer calls from Vedomosti.

Recently, President Vladimir Putin met with Russian filmmakers in Sochi, and they complained to him about Internet piracy, recalls a person familiar with the developers of the bill. Since the presidential administration supported the deputy project, it will be adopted "very quickly," the source of Vedomosti is sure. According to the official of the presidential administration, in the near future the president will issue an order to the government to develop a mechanism to combat piracy, and the deputies were the first to take the initiative. Deputy Robert Schlegel knows that this week the bill will be discussed by the State Duma committees, and next week it may be adopted in the first reading and finally approved before the end of the current session.

The bill affects not only the business of copyright holders, but also the interests of Internet businesses and Internet-dependent markets (4.62% of GDP in 2012, excluding revenues from telecommunications companies), says Irina Levova, an analyst at the Russian Association of Electronic Communications. Therefore, the project still needs to be agreed upon with the relevant ministries, departments and industry, she is sure. Moreover, it will increase the costs of the Moscow City Court, which the deputies propose to assign the consideration of all appeals from copyright holders, and Roskomnadzor. For example, the law on child protection, which provides for filtering sites with content harmful to children, was introduced by Roskomnadzor, which maintains a register of harmful sites, into additional expenses - for new employees, software and analytics, Levova is sure. This law was also initially presented as not requiring state funding, and nevertheless it went through the approval procedure in the government, she points out.

A Roskomnadzor employee told Vedomosti that the agency carries out all work related to maintaining the register within the budget allocated to the agency.

The government will not allow access to pirates