The 1+1 media and StarLightMedia groups brought criminal charges against a pirate for the first time in Ukraine
For the first time in Ukraine, thanks to the active and consolidated actions of the media groups 1+1 media and StarLightMedia to combat the piracy of television content, the violator was brought to criminal responsibility for a serious crime, namely, for the violation of copyright and related rights, which caused material damage in a particularly large amount and, in accordance with the Law of Ukraine , provides for punishment in the form of deprivation of liberty imprisonment for a period of up to six years with possible deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for a period of up to three years.
Last week, on January 16, 2020, the Bilyaiv District Court of the Odesa region sentenced one of the Internet providers of the Odesa region in a case regarding the illegal provision of IPTV television services to subscribers of the Internet provider without concluding license agreements with the rights holders.
Thus, with the joint efforts of the media groups 1+1 media and StarLightMedia, the lawyers of Smartsolutions Law Group and the National Police of Ukraine, during the pretrial investigation of the crime, 2 searches were conducted, the provider's equipment was seized, and a number of forensic examinations were conducted, which proved the fact of the commission of the crime provided for in part 3 of Article . 176 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of copyright and related rights). It was established that in the period of 2018-2019, in order to obtain illegal income, the provider used broadcast programs of TV channels 1+1, 2+2, TET, Bigudi, UNIAN, PLUSPLUS, STB, Novy Kanal, ICTV, OCE, M1 and M2, without paying royalties to channel owners and profiting from subscribers.
"We are grateful for the professional work of law enforcement agencies and lawyers. The issue of protecting our rights remains in the priority focus of our attention, and we expect the next verdicts of the courts in the near future," said Vyacheslav Mienko, Director of GR of the 1+1 media group.
This case of bringing a pirate provider to criminal responsibility demonstrates the readiness of media groups to defend their rights as content owners and protect subscribers from the risk of being without television at any moment due to the illegal actions of individual providers.
"For the first time in practice, for violation of related rights, the court found him guilty of committing a serious crime provided for by part 3 of Art. 176 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine of the head of the Internet provider company, which covers a large part of Odesa region. This person, using his official position, carried out illegal distribution of broadcast programs of the TV channels "1+1", "2+2", "TET", "PLYUSPLUS", "UNIAN", "Bigudi". By his actions, the offender caused material damage to the right holder damage in a large amount, but, realizing that the punishment for the appropriate sanction of this offense includes, among other things, deprivation of liberty for a term of up to six years, the offender admitted his guilt and expressed a desire to compensate for the material damage caused by him. For their part, the representatives of the victims gave their consent for the suspects to enter into a plea agreement with the prosecutor, on the basis of which on January 16, 2020 the court a verdict was passed and a non-custodial sentence was imposed ," commented Oleksandr Paputsia, managing partner of Smartsolutions Law Group.
"The protection of intellectual property is the basis of the creative economy, and our task as rights holders is to fight for it. In the course of daily checks of providers that illegally rebroadcast the group's TV channels, we discovered this Internet provider. According to the internal action algorithm, we contacted him with the demand to stop the illegal rebroadcasting of TV channels of the StarLightMedia group or to conclude a contract and work in the legal field. The provider did not respond, the retransmission continued. In the middle of 2018, a statement was submitted to the cyber police, after which a pre-trial investigation began. During his time, an investigative experiment was conducted, a search was conducted with the seizure of equipment in two places at the same time, and technical and economic examinations were conducted. After which the suspicion was served. For our media group , this is already the second sentence against an Internet provider that illegally rebroadcasted the group's TV channels. But there is also a difference in these two cases. The first sentence was based on Part 1 of Article 176, and this one is based on Part 3 of Article 176 ," explained Dmytro Levin, head of the Content Monitoring Center of the Digital & PayTV Division of StarLightMedia.
"We at StarlightMedia try to create conditions under which media employees and content authors receive decent and comfortable working conditions. At the same time, the industry of creating and consuming content as a whole is growing. For StarLightMedia, this is an important and integral task of a responsible media business. The fight against piracy is a difficult line of work. At the moment, Dmitry's team has more than 30 criminal cases, among which there are already cases of bringing pirates to justice for violations of minor gravity. Each new court decision sets a precedent in the market. This makes further steps in the fight against piracy easier and more conscious. Our goal is to stop piracy as soon as possible. So that potential thieves are afraid to even think about stealing intellectual property," commented Mykola Fayengold, commercial director of StarLightMedia's Digital & PayTV division.
