The Russian anti-piracy law came into effect yesterday, Thursday, August 1st , and along with this event, over 1,700 websites went on strike in protest.
The content of the websites was unavailable to visitors during the strike denouncing the law and calling for it to be repealed, as RT reports.
While some services, such as music website Zaycev.net and online encyclopedia Lurkmore.to, took part in the protest, others, such as Mail.ru, the largest e-mail service in Russia, kept their websites up but spoke out against the new legislation.
Russia's search engine, Yandex, had previously expressed concerns about the new law, but ignored the strike on August 1.
The Pirate Party of Russia, which recently held a street rally against the law and announced “Black August,” asked its followers to avoid paying any royalties, such as movie tickets.
The law, which came into effect on August 1, allows copyright holders to contact websites that distribute illegal content. Within 3 days, the websites must block access to the illegal files and keep them there until the court proceedings are held.
If the “illegal” websites do not comply with the order, service providers will step in to stop the page from being displayed entirely on the internet. However, if the copyright holder does not file a lawsuit within 15 days of the initial complaint, the blocking of the website will not take effect.
The first lawsuit has already been filed by film distribution company Cinema without Borders, targeting Russia's largest social network VKontakte. However, the lawsuit was dismissed after the company failed to provide all the documents proving their copyright claims.
