©RIA Novosti
No Kazakhstan websites were closed after adoption of the new Copyright Law, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Majilis deputy Murat Abenov. “There are currently around 8 million Internet users in Kazakhstan. So the copyright problem has moved to the Internet, too. None of the torrent-trackers or websites were closed under this law. In the other words there have been no court rulings or decisions of state authorities limiting access to any of the websites or trackers in relation to copyright law violation. Everyone who closed down their websites, they closed them independently for different reasons,” MP said. There are three main reasons behind certain content resources suspending their work. The first reason is shutting down selected services knowing that they contravene current legislation. The second reason is clean-up, i.e. elimination of illegal content. The third reason is that “some services close to create a negative image”. Abenov did not specify the image of what they are trying to create, but speculations in the Internet have it that it is the negative image of the new law. The law is not welcomed by either common internet users or owners of content-distributing websites and trackers. As for the liability, it is borne by the distributor, i.e. the website that uploads illegal content, but only after the author whose rights are violated makes a request asking to delete the content. In case the resource’s owners fail to abide to the request, the author or the rights owner can apply to court with the same request and an evidence of the copyright violation. The court will oblige the website to delete the illegal files and its owners will be penalized. Material liability will be borne in case of the second violation. The penalty will make 16,180 to 24,270 tenge ($109 to $164) for individuals and 161,800 to 242,700 tenge ($1,093 to $1,640) for legal entities. In case the violation is repeated again, the liability will become a criminal one and the penalty can escalated to years in prison.
No Kazakhstan websites were closed after adoption of the new Copyright Law, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Majilis deputy Murat Abenov.
“There are currently around 8 million Internet users in Kazakhstan. So the copyright problem has moved to the Internet, too. None of the torrent-trackers or websites were closed under this law. In the other words there have been no court rulings or decisions of state authorities limiting access to any of the websites or trackers in relation to copyright law violation. Everyone who closed down their websites, they closed them independently for different reasons,” MP said.
There are three main reasons behind certain content resources suspending their work. The first reason is shutting down selected services knowing that they contravene current legislation. The second reason is clean-up, i.e. elimination of illegal content. The third reason is that “some services close to create a negative image”. Abenov did not specify the image of what they are trying to create, but speculations in the Internet have it that it is the negative image of the new law. The law is not welcomed by either common internet users or owners of content-distributing websites and trackers.
As for the liability, it is borne by the distributor, i.e. the website that uploads illegal content, but only after the author whose rights are violated makes a request asking to delete the content. In case the resource’s owners fail to abide to the request, the author or the rights owner can apply to court with the same request and an evidence of the copyright violation. The court will oblige the website to delete the illegal files and its owners will be penalized. Material liability will be borne in case of the second violation. The penalty will make 16,180 to 24,270 tenge ($109 to $164) for individuals and 161,800 to 242,700 tenge ($1,093 to $1,640) for legal entities. In case the violation is repeated again, the liability will become a criminal one and the penalty can escalated to years in prison.