Online cinemas will become more patriotic

A draft law on the regulation of Internet TV has been submitted to the State Duma

The Duma is considering a bill by LDPR MP Andrei Lugovoy and former Chechen Minister of Communications Shamsail Saraliev, who propose to limit foreign participation in online cinemas, like on radio and television, and oblige them to remove content at the request of users. The measure, originally designed to crack down on the American Netflix service, could add trouble to Russian online movie theaters.

On November 25, deputies Andrey Lugovoy and Shamsail Saraliev submitted to the Duma a bill on additional control over video services by Roskomnadzor - on November 28, it was submitted for consideration by the profile group. Lugovoy and Saraliev propose additional restrictions for "organizers of audiovisual services" on the Internet that have more than one hundred thousand visitors a day from Russia, as well as those who have at least 20 thousand visitors a day and these are sites intended "mainly for users, located on the territory of one subject of the Russian Federation.

Such resources, according to Lugovoi and Saraliev, can only be owned by Russian companies - they will be subject to the same restrictions as radio and television channels: the founders cannot be "a foreign state, an international organization, as well as an organization under their control, a foreign legal entity, Russian legal entity, the share of foreign participation in the authorized capital of which is more than 20 percent, a foreign citizen, a stateless person, a citizen of the Russian Federation, having the citizenship of another state”. In addition, foreigners will not be able to manage the video service.

Roskomnadzor must include such sites in a special register and notify the owners about this - within two months after notification, they are required to provide documents on the absence of foreign founders and managers. In case of refusal - an administrative fine of up to 300 thousand, and for a repeated violation, you can run into a suspension of work for 30 days. These rules do not apply to services that aggregate user video and are of "strategic importance for national defense and national security."

Service owners will have to ensure that videos on their sites do not promote terrorism, extremism and pornography, and do not disclose state secrets. At the request of users, it will be necessary to remove from sites information about private life and discrediting honor, dignity and business reputation.

The plans to develop the law were known as early as the beginning of 2016: after the American Netflix service entered the Russian market, the Russian authorities were alarmed by the appearance of a video channel that had no representation in Russia and did not enter into contracts with Russian providers. Then Deputy Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications Alexey Volin said that Netflix should obtain a broadcasting license. “Participants in the Russian market tell us that this creates special working conditions for Netflix and leads to unfair competition ... we will definitely not leave our broadcasters in trouble,” Rambler News Service quoted the deputy minister as saying.

Soon, the Media Communication Union, which unites the main Russian telecom operators and the largest media holdings, began developing new rules for video services using Over the top technology: with it, the content comes directly from the provider to the user, without the mediation of the telecom operator. “Recently, OTT (Over the top) technology, which operates on the basis of operator communication networks, has been increasingly developed, within which services are provided that change the traditional behavior of users, models of social interaction, business conduct and the formation of information flows ... At the same time, the activities of such entities the market providing OTT services, such as online cinemas and other network resources that carry out digital distribution of video content, remains unsettled, ”says the explanatory note to the draft law by Lugovoi and Saraliev.

As a result, the new law may complicate the life of Russian online cinemas as well. For example, the popular MEGOGO service is 99.99% owned by the Cypriot Senseira Trading Ltd., Ivi belongs to the Cypriot Ivi.ru Media Ltd. In September, Alexander Byrdin, General Director of the Internet Video Association, in a commentary to Gazeta.ru, announced the initiative of the Media Communications Union: “The organization is trying to reduce the value of the assets of specific several companies - market leaders.”

Mikhail Platov, Deputy General Director for Legal Affairs, also believes that members of the Media Communications Union (ISS), such as Gazprom-Media, STS-Media and the National Media Group, when creating a bill, are striving to reshape the paid video market. Now it is dominated by companies that have nothing to do with these holdings. If the law is adopted, a whole segment of the market will have to refuse a significant share of foreign investment, and besides, the bill will greatly affect the development of the investment climate in Russia as a whole, Platov believes.

“If now the market is developing in conditions of free competition, then our colleagues from the ISS consider it necessary to limit the ability of companies to attract investments, that is, to decide where they can get money for development, first of all, money for content licensing,” says Platov. - Foreign investors in Russian online cinemas are Western funds and private investors. They invested when there was no market at all and brought the necessary expertise to it as well. Now the value of their investments is being crossed out by the light hand of the authors of the bill, violating all messages from the President of the Russian Federation and the government on protecting investments in the Russian segment of high technologies. It is not clear to us why this should be done. Netflix is ​​not a leader in this market, but Russian companies that will suffer from these restrictions are in the lead.”