Russian rights-holders team up to combat piracy

A group of Russian media rights holders comprising producer and channel provider Sistema Mass-Media and production companies Amedia, Bazalevs and Direktsiya Kino are in discussions to establish a single unified monitoring service to find illegal copies of content on the internet.

The companies want to team up to avoid duplicating their efforts in tackling the problem of copyright violation in a country notorious for internet piracy.

The four groups are in talks to create a single technology company that can monitor the web and track down illegal copies of content or to jointly contract monitoring out to a third party provider. According to local reports, possible candidates include Webkontrol, a company that already searches for pirated content on the internet on a commercial basis.